


River's Doctor

by LittlePageAndBird



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Development, Eleventh Doctor Era (Revisited), F/M, Marriage, Relationship Study, Second Chances, Timey-Wimey, Twelfth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 55,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlePageAndBird/pseuds/LittlePageAndBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River falls right into his life again without warning; fresh from Berlin and more lost than he's ever seen her. After a millennium the Doctor discovers that their story is far from over, and there are things he's yet to learn about her as their timelines coalesce once again. When she appears to seek out his latest incarnation, he realises that he's only now becoming her Doctor.</p><p>Features: River finding the Twelfth Doctor after the events of both Berlin and Manhattan; the Doctor going to River after Lake Silencio and during her time at Luna to teach his future wife Gallifreyan; as well as crossing his own timestream to give his younger self a talking to (among other stories!).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Hair Like Yours

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If anything in the Whoniverse belonged to me, I really wouldn't know what to do with myself and frankly River's character would be just dangerous in my hands. So I own nothing!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prologue: a flashback to one of the (Eleventh) Doctor's many dates with River, during which she lets something slip...

_He feels awful. Not just because his favourite bow tie is now so waterlogged that it droops miserably at the edges and is most probably ruined, although admittedly he is somewhat upset about that._

_Apologising profusely as he fluffs River's sodden curls with a soft towel helps to relieve a portion of the guilt, but he's still terribly annoyed at himself. He's somebody's husband, for goodness' sake, and he still can't seem to make a date go to plan._

_He should have checked the weather forecast, really, but he was too busy sort of marvelling in the mere presence of his wife to find anything else remotely interesting. Imagining he'd receive at the very least a severe eye roll for confessing such a thing, he goes on expressing his regret as he squeezes the water out of her hair, mumbling that he should have done environment checks and it was his fault that her hair was ruined, as well as her make-up and outfit. Her brand new dress is currently drying on the radiator- she'd borrowed a pair of blue pyjamas that were supposed to belong to him, without asking, but he wasn't going to protest when she looked all snug in them like that…_

_Dragging his eyes back to her hair, he clears his throat and his shoulders sag as he moans about what was intended to be a romantic picnic being ruined and why couldn't he have just picked a sunny day and after a thousand years he still can't get it right and-_

_His wrists still as River's slender fingers wrap around them, stopping his bumbling apologies mid-flow with the electric shiver that any amount of physical contact with her could cause to pulse through him. She smiles gently, knowingly, lowering his hands from her hair._

_"Sweetie, you really have got to stop apologising for the elements." His wife flicks her hair, very deliberately sending water droplets careening into his face. She revels in watching him splutter; smirking wickedly when he scrubs his cheeks dry and scowls at her. "It's just rain."_

_His eyes wander after her as she shimmies further up the mattress until she's far enough to flop back onto the pillows, laying there in lazy bliss for a few moments before she wriggles under the plush golden covers._

_She pulls them right up to her chin, purring like a contented cat when the warmth spreads to her toes. Her still-damp hair tapers off into springy fluff at the ends from the towel, and when she closes her eyes it's all he can do not to pepper kisses to her eyelids, her flushed cheeks and the slightly upturned corners of her soft lips._

_Instead, he earns every one of the baby giraffe comparisons as he drapes the towel over the end bedpost and clambers after her, the mattress dipping under his ungainly knees and elbows until he all but flops into the space next to her, staying above the covers out of necessity more than anything else as River has tucked them around herself deftly in a silky cocoon._

_Both on their backs residing in comfortable silence, he brings his hand to float up between them until one of her unruly curls tangles happily around his fingers._

_She gives him a sleepy, husky sort of hum, responding in the same way when he murmurs her name pensively._

_"Your hair is extraordinary."_

_He hears the covers rustle as she takes delight in curving against him, already dozing off- he knows because if she really had her wits about her then she'd currently be halfway through a suggestive comment that was making his ears burn, or teasing him about the oh so many times he had complimented her corkscrews. Just yesterday they'd been wonderful and exquisite and incredible within the space of an hour, before she'd laughed and told him to shut up._

_He really does like it when she just accepts his compliments. Just accepts that he's completely and irrevocably mad on her._

_His eyes cross, examining the damp lump of chocolate hair strewn between his eyes, and he sighs at it. "I wish I had hair like yours," he admits, sounding like a petulant child wishing for Christmas Day to come. "All gold and curly and… beautiful."_

_Perhaps it's because she's right on the edge of peaceful sleep that she lets it slip._

_"Don't worry, sweetie, you will one day. But I'm afraid you'll have to settle for silver."_

_His barely-there eyebrows dip. He flips onto his stomach to peer into her now open and devilishly glinting eyes searchingly, as if he's ever been able to find answers there. "What? What do you mean?"_

_She throws him that impossibly sweet smile of hers. That ridiculous quiff is tickling her forehead, and she brushes it back before tracing her fingers lazily across his forehead. "Spoilers, my love."_


	2. Barefoot from Berlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The (twelfth) Doctor and Clara are in the Tardis when an unexpected visitor suddenly bursts back into their lives... (no prizes for guessing who it is).

Three knocks was all he received by way of warning.

"Clara, get that for me!"

The Doctor's voice was muffled, floating up from where he lay under the console with wires wrapped around his limbs. He was currently in the process of fixing something that he insisted was of unbelievable importance, though didn't exactly know what its function was.

Clara set her tea down, along with the spanner he'd instructed her to hold. "Do you even know where we are?"

A hand appeared from under the rotor to wave dismissively. "Oh, you know. Almost certainly somewhere relatively safe."

"Right. So you don't know."

"Look, the majority of places out in the Cosmos _are_ perfectly safe! We're just unlucky most of the time. Or we go looking for trouble."

"It's the second one," Clara assured him. Her eyes trailed over to the door, narrowing suspiciously. "It could be anything out there! What if it's something terrifying that wants to… destroy the world, and wants you out of the way first?"

" _Someone's_ clearly been here too long," he remarked wryly, rolling out from under the wires to throw her a withering look. "Clara. Because terrifying, world-destroying beings with murderous intentions…" He paused as the persistent rhythmic rapping rang out once again through the console room. "…Do not knock."

"Maybe it's a ruse!" she hissed.

"Yeah, give me a shout if it's someone important." He was under the console again before she could argue her case, so she advanced towards the door in tiny shuffles, eyebrows pinched together warily.

"Try to get there before they waste away."

"I'm _going_!" Hissing Scottish-related insults under her breath, she placed her hand over the door latch. "If I get killed in three seconds, I want my last words to go on record as: answer your own stupid door next time! I'm not your-"

Clara's sharp inhalation to replace the rest of her words was loud enough for it to float through to the Doctor, and in the dead silence that followed he began to wonder if she'd been right on her murder hunch after all.

He stilled his hands, listening for any indication of life. Then- " _Doctor_!"

Clara. Narrowly avoiding smacking his head against the console, he flipped onto his feet and scrambled to get the right way up.

"Yes- him, I need!"

That voice. His feet ground into the console floor, stopping dead.

Attempting frantically to rationalise the impossible in his head, he stood frozen and heard the awkwardly bizarre small-talk between Clara and the old voice as if it was floating up from underwater.

"You're _new_. Or are you?"

She sounded exactly as she had the last day, the first day, _every_ day. The voice that had soothed and reproached him, sent him to sleep, woken him in beautiful whispers. A shiver drained through his bones.

"Um, not really."

"Wrong order- lovely. Can't _wait_ for this to become a regular thing…"

"Doctor," Clara hissed with an edge more impatience, whipping her head back over her shoulder to shoot him a helpless look.

He heard her voice again. "Yes- I have bones to pick!"

She sounded angry- nothing new. Telling himself to push sentimentality to one side- an old procedure, given everything his first meeting with her had burdened him with- he allowed his feet to walk him to the door.

He sort of wished that he'd made the console room bigger; at least he would have had more time to prepare. Because in two staggering steps there she was, the same through new eyes. His River. With a face that could melt ice into fire and spin blood and bone into fragile cobwebs.

She was in a dishevelled ensemble consisting of a short black skirt, an oversized and creased white shirt with what looked like a hospital emblem printed on the breast pocket and no shoes. He felt Clara's eyes boring into him, glistening and anxious, and from somewhere felt a duty to remain strong.

It was a while before he managed to get a word in; nothing out of the ordinary and just as well, with the amount swimming restlessly in his head.

"Where the hell did you-? _Oh_."

River's eyes absorbed him, pinning him where he stood. Even after so very many years he knew in an instant; no blinding sparkle in her eyes to go with that smile, no rosy tint to her cheeks, no bounce in her hair. It wasn't as if the River in front of him simply didn't live up to his memories; he'd never had the need to rose-tint the vision of her in his head. It wasn't that. Something was wrong with her, and it was shocking how that realisation suddenly overrode everything else.

A smirk had crawled up her lips without him noticing; that classic smirk that only she could give. The very same that conveyed impossible things and stirred endless memories buried in his head. "Hello handsome. Now, _this_ face isn't in my log! I'll have to do something about that. God, you are pretty. I might have to paint you. Older, too! Men always get better with age; you're like fine wines. What happened?" She grinned devilishly. "Was it me?"

"Uh." His voice was hoarse; he swallowed a lump down forcefully, opening eyes that had flickered shut involuntarily and scornfully applauding himself for letting an intelligible noise be the first thing he said to her after a thousand years. "No."

She gasped. "Someone got to you first? Well, I can't be having that. I always deal the fatal blow." Her cheeky smirk faded as she strolled forwards, jabbing him in the chest accusingly and making his feet pedal backwards. "You! Now, _you_. You love being all mysterious, I'll give you that. All I get is, "Rule One: the Doctor _lies_ ". Then half an hour later I wake up to find out you're gone! Did you run away from me?" she asked teasingly, voice dropping to a purr. "Never run when you're scared."

The manic rifling through his memories in an attempt to place when she had come from shuddered to an abrupt conclusion. "Berlin."

Early, then. Very early. He wondered if this was some sort of karma, if the Universe was capable of such things, shoving her on his doorstep in this state without warning.

"Berlin!" River echoed brightly. "Fun, wasn't it?" She smirked, letting her eyes trail away from him. "Who's _this_?"

"I'm- I'm Clara. Hi."

"Hello there. I'm Melody. But _somebody_ insists on calling me River… I think it's a role-play thing," she whispered loudly. Her glassy eyes widened as they drifted around the console room. "It's different in here… everything's different!" she cried, sounding surprisingly distressed for someone who had only visited once before. "Is somebody having a midlife crisis?"

"River-" His tongue rolled back into his throat, almost choking on the name he hadn't spoken in so very long. Her eyebrows vaulted up her forehead. "River. You're sick."

"I'm not the one dishing out the kinky names, sweetie."

"No- no, you're _unwell_." He gestured at her, all ashen skin that was developing a sickly sheen with the mere effort of remaining upright; the dire effects of regeneration energy loss if he ever saw them. "You shouldn't have been allowed out of hospital like this."

"Oh, you sound like the nurses." She rolled her eyes, looking for all the world like her mother. "If everyone had just been a little less dramatic, I wouldn't have _had_ to climb out that window…"

He gawped at her incredulously. "You broke out? Why?"

"I was _bored_! You left me, went swaggering off somewhere… left me nothing but a bloody blank book- thank you very much, by the way!" she scoffed, whipping her untarnished, still crisp diary from her pocket and waving it in front of him. "What am I supposed to do with this? You could at the very least have given me something decent to read if you were going to leave me all on my own without even saying goodbye."

She pouted, looking up at him with sorrowful pools of eyes. It may have, admittedly, been a trick that had worked in the past. Luckily, he was aware that he now possessed the face and voice to give him at least a slight air of authority- not that he expected it to make a difference with her, but even now if her wellbeing was at stake then anything else was of little importance. "River, there was a reason why I put you in there. You aren't well. You need to sleep."

"Ugh!" She grimaced, waving her hand dismissively even though it was shaking. "I'm not overly fond of spending hours in bed…. _unless_ …"

What was supposed to be a wink culminated in River's eyes rolling back into her head; the Doctor leapt forwards just in time for her to slump into his arms.

Clara started forwards. "What's wrong, what's happening to her?"

"Oh, just an impromptu… sleep." He adjusted the dead weight of her in his arms, peering down at her shockingly pale face anxiously. "Nothing life-threatening; though you know she's bad when she can't even make it to the end of an innuendo."

He became slightly preoccupied with a stray curl across her cheek, brushing it back with more tenderness than was very probably necessary for an unconscious person. "She just needs rest. She'll be right as rain in…" He scooped her up into his arms, staggering over to one of the console seats. "…A few hours."

He picked a seat just wide enough to lay her down, lifting her bare feet onto it once her head was resting safely on the arm. "No shoes. We're in the middle of nowhere. She's been walking for miles, with no shoes. River…" he scolded under his breath, straightening up to find Clara at his side.

"How is she here? Where did she come from?"

"She said; Berlin. The first time she met me… which makes this the second."

"How did she find you?"

"I've no idea. There was no message; she must have just run into us- or us into her- whichever way around it is- through… luck. If it can be called that."

"I think it can." Clara extended her hand, offering him the Tardis-blue diary cupped in it. "Here, she dropped this."

"Thank you." He slipped it into his pocket, on the opposite side from the full and weathered version of itself, with a mental note to ensure that he did not mix up the two.

"Well. That was eventful." Clara puffed out a sigh, running a hand through her hair. A hushed minute floated by. "Doctor?"

He hummed distractedly, chewing on his fingernails and observing River as if she was possessed.

"Are you… alright?"

"Yes, yeah, I'm… well no, not particularly. This doesn't make any kind of sense…"

"Yeah… dead wife turning up on your doorstep, must be-"

He shushed her fiercely. "Clara! Spoilers!"

" _What_?" she whispered back.

"You can't go around just blurting things out like that! She's clearly not dead _yet_ , not to her. And don't call her my wife in front of her either. _This_ version of her hasn't even married me yet. She's right at the beginning."

Clara's eyebrows dipped, puzzling the conundrum over in her head. "So you can't mention anything about the future she'll go on to have with you? All the things you and her did when you had your other face? Not a single thing?"

"Not a single thing."

She pursed her lips, pushing a sigh between them. "That sounds… complicated."

"Oh, I'm more than used to it. Though this hasn't happened for a long, long time… I thought it never would again."

"She warmed to your new face quickly."

"Well, she has just changed herself. And she's only interacted with my last face once before anyway, so she probably doesn't mind it disappearing as much as other… certain shallow humans."

A brief scowl cast over her face. "Well, that's just not- what do you mean, she's changed?"

"She regenerated yesterday- yesterday for her. Shot by Hitler."

"Hitler?"

"Yes."

Clara pressed a hand to her forehead. "Timey wimey."

He chuckled.

"She seemed a bit…"

"Bonkers?"

"That."

"Normal enough; you know what regeneration's like. It leads to all sorts of erratic behaviour."

Clara twirled one of her rings innocently. "So you mean she doesn't usually… flirt, or call you pretty?"

There was knowing in her voice; sure enough, he threw her a sidelong glance to find her smirking. "Well, that's what growing up with Amy Pond as your main influence does to you. Thing is, she's only just become River. She's not my wife yet… she's barely anything, from her point of view."

"And… from yours?"

He shook his head. "Spoilers, Clara. I've told you, I can't tell her anything about her future. She has to find that out for herself."

"Not _really_ what I was asking…"

His hands dug in his pockets abruptly. He spun on his heel, wandering over to the controls to eye them pointlessly. "I'll make sure she's well enough before I drop her off," he muttered quickly.

Clara was hot on his heels. "Drop her off? Where?"

"At the University," he deadpanned, sighing impatiently at the puzzled look on Clara's face. His hands wriggled in mid-air as he talked, attempting to justify his plans even though he was struggling even to believe himself. "She's an archaeologist- she will be an archaeologist, she has to- become- that, so I'll just drop her off, and she can make her own way-"

"Hang on. So you're just going to leave her? You can't do that! What happened to "in sickness and in health"?"

"We didn't take those vows. We didn't take any vows, come to think of it… I just sort of, told her she was my wife."

"Lucky woman."

He shot her a glare. "She's a grown woman, Clara."

Her arms folded across her chest, and he knew he was in trouble. She had this vexing habit of being able to talk him to anything under the sun. "Grown women can still need their husbands, _Doctor_. And, more importantly, two-thousand-year-old husbands can still need their wives."

He shook his head. "I'm not her husband."

"But you will be. That woman there, one day she's going to fall in love with you, and marry you-"

"And all of that has already _happened_ for me. It's over. My life with her is… over." He nodded as if trying to convince himself, gritting his back teeth because despite endless nights of telling himself the same thing it was shockingly difficult to say out loud. "Once she's better, I'll see her on her way. She won't want to know me anyway. Not like this."

"Don't, don't do that. If there's anyone who isn't going to bruise that bus-sized ego of yours, it's her. She already wants to _paint_ you," she reminded him with a cocked eyebrow and a suppressed snort of laughter.

He glared the amusement off her face. "That's not happening."

"Not tonight."

"Stop it."

"But what's going to happen to her if you drop her off like this? She's obviously massively vulnerable right now- anyone would be, getting shot by _Hitler_ -"

"Look- she'll manage! She'll go to the University, study archaeology, get her doctorate; she'll be absolutely fine-"

"And how do you know that? Because that's what she told you? And I suppose she didn't mention _this_?"

"Well, she couldn't have."

"So if she couldn't have mentioned seeing you with this face _at all_ , how do you know that she was alone? How can you know that _you_ weren't there to help her?"

"I suppose I… can't… ooh."

The weight of worlds sprang off his shoulders, and he tried to force it back down, push the idea out of his head before it took seed. Wonderful things such as this, _new_ things, simply did not happen to him; not any more. "But- but… no, this shouldn't be how it is. I've done our last date, I've said goodbye to her- a very long time ago. I'm not sure I can do this all over again."

"You can. Because you have to." She smiled, seeing the stubbornness set into his features melt away. "And anyway, you're not _supposed_ to know when the last time of anything will be. It's better that way."

He surrendered, returning that impish smile of hers. "My impossible girl," he mused. "By the way, don't expect her to be too fond of you."

"What?"

"Well, think about it from her point of view. Last time she saw me I was still travelling with her parents; she runs into me a couple of days later and I'm older and living with a wee young thing who by Earth's conventional standards might be considered attractive."

Clara's tongue curled in her cheek, eyebrows shooting up. "Right. I'm just going to ignore that."

"Ignore what?"

"Yep. Exactly. Why, is she the… jealous type?"

His low laugh answered her alone. "Clara. There was one night where two different versions of her turned up, from different points in time-"

She winced. "Am I sure I want to hear this story?"

He shook his head. "That _mind_ of yours! Always jumping to conclusions like that, you should be ashamed of yourself. No. She was jealous of _herself_ ; she demanded to know who this other woman on board was, and wasn't best pleased when I wouldn't tell her so stormed off to look for herself… herself. So feel free to come to your own conclusions on your question."

A sudden grin split across Clara's face like a sunbeam. He frowned at her. "What?"

She nudged his arm. "This'll be good for you."

"I'd love to know how you arrived at that conclusion."

He sounded weary even to himself. Apparently he must have seemed that way a lot, because Clara didn't even blink.

"Because she's brand new, which means… you're going to have to be patient with her." Clara cocked an eyebrow, apparently incredibly entertained by the whole concept. "Now, from what I've seen, _this_ you," she made a sweeping gesture across him, "doesn't do patient. Grim and grumpy, and… Scottish, yeah, but _patient_ …"

"What are friends for if not to boost each other's self-esteem," he muttered wryly.

A heavy groan made them spin where they stood. River was awake, perched on the edge of the seat he'd laid her on and staring into space with a lost expression.

It took a little dig in the back from Clara to make the Doctor wander forwards, gingerly taking a seat next to her. "How are you?"

Her head whipped towards him, eyes wide with alarm and shimmering with tears. "I don't understand!"

"What don't you understand?" he asked gently.

"I was in hospital, what…" Her bottom lip wobbled. "What happened to me? Where are my parents?"

"Not here, I'm afraid."

She opened her mouth as if to persist, but with one fleeting moment where their eyes met she seemed to know to decide against it. "You're different," she remarked flatly, forehead creasing with the effort of attempting to remember what had dissolved into fog. "Were you different when I got here?"

"Yes…" he answered, slightly wary of being robbed of her rather positive reaction to his new face.

"How did I…?" She swallowed, screwing her bleary eyes shut when the console room's cool lights became too much for her. "How _did_ I get here?"

"Even I don't know that. But I do believe it involved a hospital window."

"Oh…" Her weak laugh trailed off into a moan, and she buried her face in her hands. "How long have I been here?"

"All of five minutes."

Her eyes fell on Clara, and she almost recoiled in fright before leaning close to the Doctor to whisper in his ear. "Who's that?"

She smiled patiently, taking a hesitant step forwards. "I'm Clara. I'm a friend of your- um- the Doctor's."

River blinked rapidly, pressing her mouth shut into a thin line. "I see. I should… I'm sorry for- imposing, I should… go…"

She swayed dangerously on her feet within seconds of managing to stand up. The Doctor rose up to catch her. "Whoa. You're not going anywhere like this."

"I…" What little colour had graced her face had ebbed away; her eyes were ringed with grey and kept flickering shut. "I'm alright."

He held onto her arms, keeping her upright when she attempted to advance towards the door and her knees buckled. Hiding the damage. He hadn't missed that. "Melody." She looked up at him helplessly with cloudy eyes. "You don't have to do that."

Her mouth opened and closed uselessly. River Song lost for words; perhaps the Universe worked miracles after all, he mused. "I should…"

He tried to ask as kindly as he could. "Where else have you got to go?"

She threw a glance at the door, chewing her lip. "I could… find somewhere."

His hand was tucking her curls behind her ears before he could tell it not to. "You have."

River sank down into the chair, defeated. "Are you sure?" she asked when he perched next to her.

"It's not like I'm short on space."

It made her laugh, albeit feebly. "Just… you only met me yesterday."

"No; _you_ only met _me_ yesterday," he reminded her.

She exhaled slowly, puffing out her cheeks. "Right… still trying to get my head round that. But I did cause you a fair bit of trouble." She gave him a watery smile. "You don't owe me this."

"You always cause me trouble." It was amazing how much joy slipped without force into those words. He loved her mischief more than he'd known at the time, it would seem. "And it's my privilege."

She looked up at him with soft eyes through a mop of unruly hair. "Look at you. They showed me all your faces, they made me memorise them, but this one never came up. I'm assuming this is the one after the one you had at Berlin?"

"Yes."

"That's more faces than should be possible." Her puffy eyes narrowed, a wry smile curling up her lips. "Let me guess. You found an ingenious way around the regeneration limit."

"You could say that."

"You acted like you knew me with your last face… you must really know me now."

He shook his head gently. "Spoilers."

River scoffed. "You really overuse that word, you know. Berlin was a long time ago for you, then? Surely you can tell me that."

"Yes, it was."

Her smile was unexpectedly sad. "This must be weird for you."

"A lot stranger has happened."

"I'll bet."

She kept regarding the console room with strangeness bordering on hostility; still unsure, apparently, despite her teachings at Berlin. There were days to come, he thought, when she would stroll in and pilot the ship she was now looking at with cold unfamiliarity better than he ever could. She had always been the woman who'd _known_.

It was sort of wonderful to see her brand new, without all the psychopathic shenanigans tied on; especially when even with all of that, even with her being lost and alone and most likely feeling awful, she was still giving him that smile that could keep supernovas burning.

"Do you have any spare clothes on here?" she asked, tugging uncomfortably on the hem of the skirt she was wearing. "My mother left some outfits at the hospital for me, but they're all… well, Amy."

"I think there _might_ be some women's clothes somewhere around here…"

Clara pressed her lips together to stop her smirk growing, seeing the Doctor shoot her a look. He sighed under his breath, getting to his feet and beckoning River. "Come with me. I'll find you something."


	3. The Purpose of Furious Eyebrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This follows straight on from the previous chapter; River and the Doctor have some bonding time over pyjamas and eyebrows.

The Doctor stalked through the corridors of the Tardis, River hot on his heels. Ignoring his spinning head, he fired instructions at her because admittedly he relished being blessed with a version of her remotely willing to listen to a word he had to say.

"You can have my bed."

"But _where_ will you sleep?"

"Down girl. I don't sleep."

" _Never_?"

"Hardly ever." He came to a stop when the Tardis put the door he'd been searching for in front of him, running his fingers across the grooves in the wood with an edge of nostalgia until River caught up with him. "You, however, most definitely do need to sleep, so I hope this will do for you."

With a deft swoop of his arm, the door swung open and he gestured for River to have first entry to the room that would in time for her become their refuge, the one place in the Universe to where they could recede and be themselves together in times of both joy and misfortune.

The soft gasp that came from her was one of awe, and as he followed her his fingertips brushed the wall next to him in a silent gesture of gratitude to the Tardis. The room looked pristine, filled with the scent floating from a small vase full of sunflowers on the bedside table. The layers of dust he'd imagined must have accumulated in this room since she had left, as he had not mustered a force strong enough to bring him back here since, were gone without a trace; as were the things River's future self had left in here- shoes and perfume bottles and photographs that he'd never had the hearts to get rid of. She'd certainly gone to great lengths to make her child feel very much at home.

"Well, this is grand!" River smoothed the golden covers adorning the bed. "This'll do _very_ nicely."

The mattress bounced under her weight when she flopped onto the bed with a contented hum. She propped herself up on her elbows, watching him with a gleam in her eyes as if half-expecting him to join her. "I'd _love_ to know why you have such a magnificent bed if you don't need to sleep."

"I'm sure you would." The Doctor whirled around, heading to the wardrobe they'd once shared. "Now, about your clothes-"

He was cut off with a dirty cackle. "Doctor! How forward!"

Yes. She'd definitely spent too much time with her mother. "Dear god, you're hard work young," he muttered into the wardrobe.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing. Ah! Here." Tucked away on the top shelf, as he'd hoped, was a pair of blue pyjamas that had once belonged to her. He'd never known where they'd come from, but back in the days when she had known him better than he'd known her, she had always insisted upon wearing them; he'd never understood why, and any question as to why she adored them so much always inevitably led to a cheeky retort of _Spoilers_!

She raised an eyebrow in distaste when he presented them to her, her future favourites, for the first time. "Really?"

He finally discovered a delightful purpose for his overbearing eyebrows as he mirrored her unimpressed expression, making her relent. Eyebrow standoffs. That was new. "What would you prefer, a cocktail dress? You're to do nothing but sleep, and these are sleeping clothes. So put them on."

River took them off him reluctantly, pulling control back in the manner she always did. "I don't normally wear pyjamas, but seeing as I'm your guest…"

She was already unbuttoning her shirt, apparently unfazed by his presence, and he was quite strict in telling himself that now would be an appropriate time to leave. "I'm going to get the medical kit. Shout if you need anything."

"Oh, stay if you like!" He cast a glance over his shoulder to find her smirking. "I won't complain," she purred.

"I don't doubt that." Of course, he knew better than to give into temptation such as that when she was so very early on; even if she never changed, if her current demeanour was anything to go by, she had days waiting in her future that she was not yet ready for.

Ignoring her protestations he left her to get changed and headed down to the medical bay, intent on ensuring she made a full recovery lest that future he was so keen to make her wait for was jeopardised.

Five minutes later he was back outside the bedroom, bringing himself to an abrupt halt. "Are you… decent?"

Her voice, filled with laughter, floated through the wood. "I'm never decent."

"That's very true."

"Excuse me, dear, you're the one dragging me to your bedroom and telling me to take off my clothes!"

He hovered outside the door for another minute to be safe, and after placing the retrieved medical kit on the dresser turned to find her in front of the mirror, dressed in the new pyjamas he'd seen her in countless times. She tested out her features one by one; crossing her eyes, wrinkling her nose, puffing out her cheeks, stretching her mouth into a toothy grin before sticking her tongue out.

The Doctor allowed himself to watch her for one of the most amusing minutes of his entire life, able just to take her in unobserved since she had first arrived in a whirlwind of confusion. "River," he called softly.

It took her a good few seconds to answer, and she did so with an apologetic smile. "That's going to take some getting used to. Is that really what I call myself? It just sounds so… fairy tale."

"It's no better than Melody Pond."

She smiled. She did a lot of that, he mused, for a newly reformed psychopath. "That's true. My mother has always loved her fables. Do you have a hairbrush or something I can borrow?"

It hardly took any time for him to dig out her old brush, tucked away in a drawer full of her things. He was slightly astounded at himself, how many little memories had clung to the fabric of his mind concerning River.

"I don't know," she declared suddenly, her words punctuated with a sigh that startled him from his thoughts.

"What?"

"Well… I did love the hair at first, but having to attack _this_ every morning?" She gestured at her flamboyant mane of curls, springing in directions that defied the laws of physics themselves. "It's going to be a bit of a chore."

"You'll manage." He had half a mind to prise the brush from her hand and work through it for her when she groaned in frustration at the curls tangling up in the bristles, and again had to remind himself that she didn't really know him yet. While she'd insist it of him in the future, he had no doubt that such a gesture would have seemed odd to her when she was this young.

Instead he watched her, in the way one would observe a striking painting in a gallery. She was peering at herself in the mirror, scrutinising her still-new features with a scowl. "God, my _nose_. And I used to make fun of my dad's."

He rolled his eyes behind her. He'd certainly heard _this_ complaint before.

"Saw that." She huffed, rubbing her nose as if she could reshape it with her bare hands.

"Regeneration's a lottery." He decided not to add the opinion that she had most _definitely_ won the jackpot. He'd told her that before, on a morning just like this when she was grunting irritably and wrestling her way through her unruly curls. Or he would.

"Well, it's alright for you; you'll most likely change again in due time. I'm stuck with this now." She pressed the delicate arch in her nose with a scowl. "Look at this! What am I supposed to do with this?"

"I've got one now." He joined her at the mirror, twisting his head to the side. "Look at mine. I could go fishing with that."

"You do look a bit like a frustrated owl. But you can't use _this_ chin as a hat rack; that's something." She bit back a snigger, seeing him throw her a glare in the mirror. "My, what an angry face! It's those eyebrows. At least they've finally hit puberty," she giggled. "They are rather menacing, aren't they? Well, now we know where the last ones were: teaming up with this pair."

He wiggled his eyebrows in the mirror. "I look permanently furious. My own reflection frightens me. And don't even get me started on the kidneys." He paused for a moment, wondering if he'd want to know the answer to the question bubbling in his head. As she hadn't recoiled in horror or threatened to leave so far, he decided that things were going well enough to test the water. She had been rather complimentary on arrival, though he wasn't entirely sure how much flattery counted when said flatterer was slightly delirious from illness. "What do you think?"

"Of?"

"This face."

For being so young, she was still so very _River_. The amount of time she kept him waiting as her eyes trailed the length of him was almost as scandalous as the conclusion she came to. "It would be positively indecent of me to say what I'm thinking." She waited for him to look up with eyes just a little too wide before throwing his reflection a sultry wink. "Why are you Scottish?"

"I don't know. It just sort of happened."

"I'm assuming this face must still be quite new for you, if you're having hang-ups about it. But you said Berlin was a while ago for you?"

"It was. I was in that last body a long time."

"Makes sense; must have lasted you a while, given that it was the body of a twelve-year-old." She grinned. "I couldn't _believe_ it when I ran into you in that cornfield!"

"Ran over me, you mean."

"Well. I never expected you to look like that. Why did you? It was _weird_ , you've got to admit. A nine-hundred-and-something-year-old having a baby face like that. You looked the same age as my parents. Though so did I, so I'm hardly one to criticise. Is that what you were doing, too? Trying to fit in?"

He'd missed having someone to just understand. It was there even now, as her new eyes met his in the mirror; the soft gaze that came from complete acceptance and unwavering faith, one he had been terrified to find in her and since struggled to find in anyone else. They all loved him, of course, for reasons unknown to him, but not like this. Everybody else loved him as a god. She loved him as a man.

She would. "I think it was," he told her.

"You said you were in that body a long time… how long is a long time?"

"Uh… roughly thirteen hundred years, I think."

" _Really_? My god! Yesterday for me was thirteen _hundred_ years ago for you? How did that happen?"

"I got… stuck, somewhere."

"Well. I suppose a millennium's no time at all for you."

It certainly had not felt like _no time at all_ , without her there. But of course he didn't tell her that.

"I can't even get my head around that… you've known me a hell of a while, in that case."

"It's a cross I have to bear."

Gradually, her on-going efforts to win the battle against her hair lessened. Before long he noticed her wince; the hairbrush slipped from her clammy and shaking hands. "Alright?" he enquired.

She blinked heavily. "Uh… I just, feel a bit… it comes and goes. I keep having relapses; you probably noticed downstairs."

He pushed her with some insistence to sit on the edge of the bed, seeing how her feet allowed her to sway as if ready to give in at any moment. "Exhaustion does that. Wandering around for days on end can't have worked wonders, either," he scolded, throwing her a look from under his eyebrows and grabbing the medical kit from the dresser. "Where did you think you were going when you broke out of that hospital?"

She huffed. "I don't know. Somewhere better."

He smiled, prising the kit open. "Good answer."

"Well, one who's been genetically engineered and filled with chemicals from birth against their will doesn't tend to be too fond of medical treatment."

"I understand." He scrambled about in the kit, retrieving what he'd been searching for and holding it up to her with an almost manic gleam in his eye. "I'm just going to stick this big needle in your arm now."

The colour drained from River's face. "Oh, no, no, no. I don't think you are."

"You lost the right to a vote when you climbed out of your window. What are you, some sort of madwoman?" he grinned. She'd understand the irony one day, when she knew him; for now he was more than content to be the only one amused by his own jokes- nothing out of the ordinary there.

Seeing the near-petrified look on her face made him lower the needle, just for a moment. "It's just me, I won't hurt you. Well, I might hurt you a fair bit, I really don't know. Do injections hurt? I haven't had one in a while."

"Yes, they do, and…" She shuffled along the bed as she spoke, scooting away from him until he grabbed her arm. "No, I don't- I don't want-"

"It'll be fine. Honestly. I'm a Doctor."

"Not a medical one," she muttered sulkily, watching with a helpless glare as he pulled her pyjama sleeve back.

"Don't be pernickety. Ooh, what's that over there?"

"What-" He used the brief moment she whipped her head to examine the astonishing- invisible- thing that he had pointed at behind her to jab the needle in her arm. " _Ow_!"

He smiled down her scowl, slightly adoring her innocence. His impossibly astute River Song, falling for ruses that caught out children. "Sorry about that. Oldest trick in the book."

She winced as the needle drove under her skin. "I don't care for this mortal lark."

He smiled wanly, massaging away the redness that the injection had left with the pads of his fingers. "You're still a lot more resilient than a human."

"Are the injections just for fun?"

He nodded up at her briefly, packing the needle away into the medical kit. "It'll numb that headache."

"How did you-"

"Common side-effect of regeneration energy depletion; natural enough," he explained softly. "Let me know if it worsens though."

"Thank you." She gave him such a sincere smile when their eyes met that it stirred feelings in him he'd forgotten he was even capable of having. Saying that, it was merely momentary; unlike herself, she seemed uncomfortable for a reason as of yet unknown to him as she cleared her throat and looked away. "Uh, Clara seems nice."

"I suppose you could say that, aside from the whole game-playing control freak thing." He almost laughed, but judging by the almost horrified expression on River's face realised that perhaps such an observation sounded rather unkind unless to Clara herself. Clara knew it was all in jest, he assured himself. She definitely didn't take offence… "No, she is. She's done more for me than I outwardly give her credit for. I'm not sure what I'd do without her, to be perfectly honest. Don't tell her I said that," he added quickly. "It won't help that egomania of hers. If she asks, tell her I said she was short and bossy; I have appearances to keep up."

River nodded, picking at the hem of her pyjama top and remaining silent for so long that he wondered if the injection had made her have a funny turn.

"So," she barked suddenly, making his hearts convulse. "Is she- are you…" Her hands scrambled for words in thin air, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "I'm assuming you're together."

He choked on a laugh. "I'm sorry?"

"It's- well. Fine. I don't want to know the details, but good for you-"

"N-no. No-"

"Bit surprised. Not surprised- surprised would suggest I care, which I obviously- just- I didn't think you got involved in that sort of thing. With girls. Or humans. Or… human girls-"

_Oh_. If he was ever lucky enough to come across an old enough version of her again, he was going to tease her _mercilessly_ for this. "I don't. She's just a good… friend, of mine. If friend is the right word."

She looked up at him, emerald eyes darting between his as if trying to determine whether or not he was being truthful. It would be a while before she'd actually be able to do so, but once she'd learned she'd never be wrong. "Really?"

For now, because she didn't yet know him, he gave her a smile by way of reassurance. "Really really."

"Oh." Her shoulders drooped a little with visible relief, and he tried not to be smug. It wasn't much of a successful attempt. "So- you've never-?"

" _No_ , River."

"You don't know what I was going to ask!"

"Oh, I most certainly do."

She smiled wanly. "Am I that predictable?"

"Just to me."

"Well." She blushed. She actually _blushed_. He had to physically look away to conceal his delight.

The moment of joy was short-lived, as all moments of joy tended to be. He heard River inhale slowly, as if bracing herself, and guessed the genre of her next enquiry correctly.

"Should I ask what happened to my parents?"

The stab of pain caused by her words made his entire body tense. It was funny, morbidly so, how no distinguishable of amount of time could lessen that sensation. "You know I can't tell you," he managed eventually, sounding far more at peace than he felt, than he'd ever felt about his Ponds.

She nodded curtly and swallowed hard, circling one of the pyjama buttons with her finger idly. "Will I see them again?"

"Oh, yes. All the time."

He saw her light up. "That's good. I miss them."

The second part came quietly, and he put such a stripped back revelation on her being so young.

"But you won't see them again," she said knowingly. "This you."

So she'd always known Manhattan was coming, then, or something like it. It seemed fitting; although apparently, the superior knowledge he'd always credited her with was his doing, by the looks of things. It was funny how the strands of their entire lives were inexorably intertwined so that they influenced each other cyclically. "No. But out there, there's a younger version of me who's just left you at the hospital and has a lifetime left with them. And you'll see him." He pushed himself to his feet, gesturing at the inviting bed. "You should really get some sleep now."

River looked up at him, a smile playing at her lips. "I'm surprised you trust me enough to leave me unattended. I did kill you the last time we met."

He winked at her. "I'll watch my back. Sweet dreams."


	4. Count to Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place on the same night as the previous two, save the flashback at the beginning which is evidently rather early in the Doctor's timeline. Enjoy! x

_She's stayed a few times now. He doesn't have much say in the matter; she struts about like she owns the place- him included._

_Sleeps in_ his _bed, too. The nerve!_

_He's tried telling her that the Tardis could easily make her a room of her own. She just laughs at that. Says she doesn't need one. Apparently she's far happier invading his very personal space in every way she can possibly think of- without asking, thank you very much. Now he's reduced to grumbling about assaulted privacy while she just smiles that smile she has that makes him terrified and sort of thrilled in equal measure._

_Something more than a little disturbing takes place one night. As per usual she has declared his bed in her name, and of course he's slightly afraid of finding out what happens if he doesn't allow her to do what she wants. She definitely seems to be a woman who gets her own way; he knows that if little else._

_But that night he's roused from busying himself around the console, fixing things that don't need fixing and pressing buttons he doesn't know the purpose of- a risky business- by shrill screams that are enough to make his blood run cold._

_When he hurtles upstairs with all the coordination of a puppy on ice, he is rather surprised to burst into the bedroom from which the screams are originating and find no aliens, no monsters- in fact, no apparent threat at all. Only River, writhing and twisting the covers around her as if in pain, with her eyes screwed shut and terrible screams bursting forth from her lungs._

_He comes to the conclusion that she must be having a bad dream, and the realisation brings about a sharp pang in his chest. She doesn't seem the type to have bad dreams; not ones as severe as he assumes they are, judging by the expression on her face that is contorted in terror even in sleep._

_The Doctor tiptoes forwards and perches on the very edge of the bed, prodding her awkwardly until her cries subside and her eyes fly open._

_"_ _Are you alright?" He realises it's a bit of a thick question the moment it leaves his lips. "Well- I mean, you're obviously not alright, because- because you were screaming, and alright people don't… scream…"_

_She's touching him. Quite firmly. Why is she quite firmly touching him?! His hands curl around the edge of the bed to prevent his body from floating up to the ceiling, as she takes it upon herself to rest her hands on his chest._

_She's whispering something under her breath in a chant. She sounds possessed._

_He is more than a little nervous. "River?" he prompts eventually, swallowing a lump in his throat._

_She doesn't respond, just keeps on whispering the same thing over and over again._

_"_ _One two three four, one two three four, one… four, one… two… one…"_

_She seems to lose control, the chant slipping away into nothing as her breathing becomes shallow and sobs rise in her throat. He doesn't know what to do._

_"_ _River…"_

_Her hands drop from him, and her body curls up as if in defence. She mumbles something that is just about translatable as an instruction to get out._

_He does as she asks, assuming she must want to be alone. Why would she tell him to get out otherwise?_

_But he feels a pull on his hearts when he glances back; guilt pools in his stomach, even though he doesn't entirely know why._

_Her eyes are full of sadness, and he hates the way she looks at him like he doesn't understand._

* * *

Clara was still up when he hopped downstairs, full of enquiries about how his wife was faring.

"She's asleep," he clarified, aware that she clearly did not consider him fit to ensure River's wellbeing if this interrogation was anything to go by.

"Ah. Did you still have her old room?"

"No, she didn't have one. She's in my- my room."

He faltered and ruffled his hair awkwardly, abruptly realising his mistake when Clara's eyes _ignited_. At least she was having a fun evening, even if it was at his expense.

"Firstly. _You_ have a _bed_?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "Is that a problem?"

"No, nothing," she shrugged. "I just- I thought you only did "standy-up-cat-naps"."

His eyebrows dipped at her Scottish imitation. "Was that meant to be me? That was poor."

She smirked. "Why do you need a bedroom?"

"It's not a bedroom. It's just my… room."

"It's a room… with a bed in it. Ergo it is a bedroom."

"No it's- look, there happens to be a console in this room, doesn't mean we call it the… well, stupid example. That room! That room you have, with all the squishy chairs in it, do you call that the squishy chair room?"

"You mean the living room?"

"The _living_ room? Why on earth would you call it that- that implies that you live only in that room! What happens when you go into the kitchen, do you _stop_ living?"

"It's just the room in which people happen to _do_ most of their living."

"Maybe for people who never go outside," he muttered.

"So not only do you have a bedroom which frankly is shocking enough but, more importantly, you have bed in that bedroom that you share with another actual living person?"

"I'm don't share- who says I share it? I'm here, not- cuddled up under the duvet with her!"

" _Right_ ," Clara whispered, condescension lining her voice. "So I suppose you just… take turns? Have shifts?"

"Uh… yes."

"No. She'd _never_ in a million years let you get away with that."

"Do you really think I have enough time to spend hours just- sleeping, next to someone?"

She grinned. "Oh, I never thought you slept."

He didn't like that she was now apparently immune to his menacing glares, but tried one all the same. "You are disgraceful. And it's past your bedtime, so, bye."

Clara eventually conceded, gambling up the stairs but stopping long enough to call back to him. "Doctor? I'm happy for you. I know what she meant to you, I'm… I'm glad you've got her again."

"Thank you. Be careful- it doesn't suit you, being nice like that. Your head might implode if it happens too often."

"Thanks for the advice. Maybe with River... try not to, you know. Be yourself, too much."

"That's better."

When Clara had disappeared he headed back to the room where River was sleeping, because he knew what was coming.

* * *

It was less than three hours into what passed for night on board the Tardis when the screaming came.

The Doctor was waiting next door, leafing through the pages of an old book without reading a single word. The moment the silence was pierced he placed it calmly on the shelf and made his way into the room where River lay.

A single wall separated him from her; he'd discovered the room in which he'd resided for the past three hours a very long time ago, and it hadn't taken him to conclude that the Tardis had designed it for the purpose for which he was now using it. In here, he was never far away to hear her child and help her when lost in the throes of a night terror.

The screams intensified the moment he edged the door open, and peering through the darkness he saw River's sleeping corpse rigid in terror, thrashing about the bed as if lost in a rough sea.

It was important not to wake her until she was firmly in his hold; he'd had a few narrow escapes before coming to that realisation. It was one of the most saddening things in the entire Cosmos to him, knowing her lack of security was such that her basic instinct was to shoot. Even in her Professor days, a gun still sat nestled between her pillows.

He managed to deftly curl his hands around her wrists, pulling her to sit upright and holding fast when she twisted violently in his grasp.

River's eyes snapped open when he said her name, rousing her abruptly from the demons of her dreams; he watched the stages of surprise, relief and then horror seep into her eyes in quick succession. Her reaction was characteristically volatile; although still shaking, the sheen of a cold sweat on her skin, she recoiled away from him.

He stared her down calmly through the darkness; she regarded him warily from where she sat, curled up tightly with her hands tucked under her knees. He knew why; she didn't trust herself. But he did, and that would be all she'd need on all nights like this.

"Give me your hands," he instructed, met with nothing more than her solid refusal to relent.

She shivered when he touched her. "Please don't."

"River," he coaxed gently, finding her shaking hands and cupping them tightly. "Trust me." He brought her hands up, and despite her resistance managed to place them over his chest where his hearts sat.

She watched him with a manically distrusting look in her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Just listen. Concentrate," he soothed, keeping his hands pressed over hers and feeling his staccato double-pulse through their intertwined fingertips. "One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four…"

"Doctor, this isn't helping!"

"And not only did you just speak a complete sentence, but shouted it in a characteristically impatient manner." He smiled wryly when she looked up at him from under heavy eyelids. "I beg to differ. Now count with me. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four…"

She joined in, a broken whisper gradually ascending into a voice more steady. They chanted together until the rosy tint returned to her cheeks and he felt the tremble drain from her fingertips.

On some nights it took hours. He never stopped, or gave up, or let go; he felt he at least owed her this, as it was the only time she ever needed- or at least, admitted to needing- comfort. After all she did for him, he would count to four a million times over if it made River a little better.

"Thank you," she whispered when she found enough breath to speak.

"It's not…" She dipped her head, burying her nose in his chest so her curls tickled his nose and made his words curdle in his head. Her hand was still clutching at his waistcoat fabric tightly, the way small children held onto grown-ups when they were afraid of falling.

He wondered momentarily if she could feel his hearts swell into a mighty drumming orchestra at her touch. It perplexed him to a degree. It would have been ridiculous, in fact, for such a feeling to linger after so long in the absence of it- if the object of his affections was anyone in this Cosmos or the next but River Song.

They'd go for months without running into each other. The moment that their timelines looped once again they'd forget they had ever been out of the other's presence. It had terrified him at first, a relationship strong enough to manage that- because it took the reason he gave for not allowing himself to grow close to someone in such a way and eradicated it. He never had to worry about River; while he had found more love in her heart than he had believed to be possible in any living creature, she had never been so human as to need him there all the time.

A thousand years didn't just fall away, of course. But then again, neither did the love that had cultivated itself over centuries, and their sporadic lives had certainly stood him in good stead for this. Although still slightly in awe that she was next to him again, simultaneously it felt like every other date they'd had; as if she had fallen asleep in this bed of theirs after one of their many days spent running across the stars, and everything was right again.

It was marvellous the amount of things that a mind could process within a moment of silence. "…Ah, a problem," he finished eventually, laying a hesitant hand on her back.

"Um…" She sat up, scrubbing her eyes tiredly. A flush ran along her cheeks; he wished he could tell her embarrassment was so far from necessary, but she'd find that out in time for herself. "Sorry. Nobody's ever… been with me before, when this has happened… apart from Amy."

"Does this happen a lot?"

River nodded. He already knew the answer in part; he'd known she had nightmares, but in the old days she'd rather have died than tell him just how regular they were and risk appearing in any way vulnerable. "I used to sleep at Amy's house when we were little… when she woke me and asked me why I was screaming I'd make up these stories about… bogeymen and horrible creatures that lived under beds. And then neither of us would be able to get back to sleep," she smiled weakly. "Needless to say I was never allowed back for long periods of time."

The Doctor laughed with her, seeing just a little of that sparkle spring back into her eyes. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "It's embarrassing- I just can't control it. It's always the same nightmare and it just never goes away."

He shook his head. "You don't have to apologise. But what you do have to do is follow me."

Springing off the bed still with one of her hands wrapped in his, he pulled her with him out of their bedroom and down the Tardis corridor.

"Where are we going?"

"I can't stop your nightmares, River." _Not when you're this young_. There had been a few instances in which he'd risked an old Time Lord trick- mental manipulation- to crawl inside her mind and soothe the terrors he found within it, but only in the rare instances when they were fortunate enough to reach the closest thing they ever would to linear.

Not tonight; he wouldn't be the giver of spoilers this early on. "But I can give you a remedy that you may just end up using for the rest of your life."

"What's that?"

"Tea," he declared. He heard her incredulous scoff, and smiled wryly. "You laugh now. Just you wait."


	5. Two Sugars

_"How do you take your tea?"_

_Her laugh surprises him so much that the spoon in his uncoordinated hands clatters against the bench. "You tell me."_

_He glances up at her warily, frowns. "What?"_

_River Song still frightens him more than he'll care to admit. For goodness' sake, she'd almost crashed that biplane, and that devilish laugh when he'd informed her of such a fact had lifted the hairs straight off the back of his neck. Poor Marilyn had been petrified as she'd flown close enough to the ground to scrape it before flipping them upside down, whooping over his shouts of terror and remarking that it was better than the way he flew the Tardis on the way there. The way she'd said "flew" had made him lapse into a sulk for the remainder of the journey._

_Yes. She's mad all right, and more than a little dangerous. Whoever she is._

_She's watching him with that manic glint, the one he sees only and always in her eye. He doesn't quite know how to describe it other than that it leaves him feeling like her possession._

_And he really rather likes it._

_She holds up two perfectly manicured digits, a smirk playing with the corners of her mouth. "Two sugars, sweetie."_

* * *

River sat at the little table in the Tardis kitchen, peppered with mug rings and a few scorch marks from Clara's many cooking escapades. He allowed himself to steal glances at her while waiting for the kettle to boil; wrapped up in her pyjamas, cheeks flushed and hair fluffed from restless sleep, it was a warmly familiar picture of domesticity that he remembered he'd almost grown used to, in a time where he was naïve enough and lost in enough pretence to allow such things.

He vowed he'd never do so again. But she looked so small like this, feet tucked underneath her and eyes flitting around the room anxiously like someone who didn't belong. He felt the strangest compulsion to look after the woman who had always more than extended him the same courtesy.

The Doctor handed her the tea when it was made perfectly, little tendrils of steam escaping from it. She looked down into the mug warily. "I don't take sugar."

"You do now." He gave her a gentle smile when her eyes shot up to him doubtfully. "Trust me. I know you more than you do." He slid into the chair opposite her and waited patiently until she gave in and took a tentative sip of the mug wrapped in her hands. Immediately her hum of approval made a smug smile ignite on his face.

Seeing her surprise at her own traits was wonderfully amusing for him, perhaps even a little magical. Nothing could quite compare with seeing someone he as bound to so closely newly emerged from the chrysalis of regeneration, discovering for the first time what she had revealed to him so very long ago.

"Are you right about everything?" she mused.

"Oh, no. You've informed me of quite the opposite several times."

Several times was a colossal understatement.

She smirked complacently, taking a long sip of her tea. "Good. Hate a know-it-all." Her eyes sparkled at him over the rim of her mug as she drank the tea. "Funny."

"What?"

"You." A smirk crawled across her face at the jolt of his eyebrows, taking pleasure in offending him as much as she always had. Would. "Older, Scottish, curly hair if you let it grow, I'll bet, and…" She leaned forwards without warning, resting her palms on his thighs; just momentarily, but enough to make his breath hitch as she stared _right_ _at him_. "Yep- green-blue eyes… just like my new one," she declared. He willed these apparently green-blue eyes of his not to let themselves drop onto her lips as she lingered close to him for just a moment longer than necessary; long enough for her satisfied sigh to leave a warm tingle along his cheeks before she reclined back into her chair with that River air, all smug and haughty and _gorgeous_.

And young. He smoothed his hand over his jacket pocket, feeling the outline of the untouched blue diary nestled within it to remind himself just how much. "You're not Scottish."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Amy; I'm half Scottish. Half English…"

"And half Tardis," he finished.

She bit her lip, completely unaware that it was a move she'd play simply to drive shivers through him in the future. His fingers curled around the arm of his chair. "How can I be half of three things?" she asked bemusedly.

"Because that's just who you are, River. You defy all logic and reason."

She chuckled. "I do like the sound of that."

Her words pinged around the Doctor's head, rousing a curiosity these days usually reserved for danger in all forms. He'd never liked this new body so far. He'd never really understood it; it was all too cross and had reminded him just how old and far away from those he'd known he actually was, which had been a rather unpleasant wake-up call. What he had concluded was that it was a lonely body; one not sculpted to fit anyone, one not with the camouflage of youth or the pleasant disposition necessary to make friendships. A body destined to reside in solitude without the warmth of love he had once craved.

But perhaps he'd been wrong.

River was focussing on a spot beneath his chin, brow furrowed. "What happened to your bow tie?"

He cringed. "Don't remind me. It's long gone."

"I liked it."

He scoffed, starting forwards at the deadly solemn expression on her face and fully expecting her to burst into peals of laughter. She'd _liked_ his fashion choices; easily the biggest surprise of the night so far. "Really?"

"It was sharp. I like a man who makes an effort."

"Well, I prefer the more minimalist look these days."

She lurched forwards on her chair, peeling back his jacket to reveal the red silk lining and cocking an eyebrow sceptically. "Minimalist?"

He glanced down at himself, slightly offended at her tone. "Yes," he judged, glancing over his own outfit. "I'd say… basic."

"I'd say wizard." That smirk was back, crawling up from behind her mug. "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

"What?"

"Being the exhibitionist." She stared his scoff of indignation down. "You changed into a top hat and tails when you had less than twenty minutes to live."

"Who doesn't?"

She smiled, but apparently a reference to Berlin was enough to pull the shards of fear back into her eyes. "You didn't ask," she said quietly, after a glacier of silence passed between them.

"Ask what?"

She ran her finger along the empty mug, watching its journey around the rim as an excuse to avoid meeting his gaze. "About my dream."

"Was I supposed to?"

She smirked weakly. "If a strange woman started screaming in _my_ bed, I'd be curious. Unless that's not unusual for you…"

"Curiosity is a dangerous game where you're concerned."

"And why might that be?"

"Spoilers."

"Ooh." Her eyes narrowed through the half-light of the kitchen, dancing in the orange glow. "What do I have to do to get all those secrets out of you, Doctor?"

"I wouldn't try. I guard my secrets closely."

"You don't know my methods." Her voice dropped; and in that instant he realised just how conflicted her battered mind must have been, fighting the psychopath that had been injected in her veins and was responsible for the cold steel edge lining her words while the new side, the River Song side which knew happiness and love and frivolity, was trying desperately to push it down. "I'm capable of more than your magnificent mind could imagine, sweetie. I could have you on your knees."

"You're forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"I'm older. And I know what all those smiles and the double-entendres mean. You don't have to consider them necessary with me, not when I look like this. I'm too old, and I know you far too much. So drop the act."

The complacent snarl fell from her face, trembling lip betraying her by the time he had concluded. Her eyes were wide and fixed on him; the man she'd murdered, now not only sitting in front of her but declaring that he knew how her soul was wired.

"I know. First time that hasn't worked, am I right?" he asked calmly, a smile softening his words as he took in her almost frightened countenance. He assumed that to have someone understand after so many years of being misread would be frightening, and then he realised that he knew that for himself courtesy of her. He was thankful that this particular body was calm enough not to melt into a twitchy puddle of nerves and flailing limbs at one of her glances; perhaps this one had been designed to handle her. "You must use that approach a lot. Why?"

River cleared her throat, shifting in her chair uneasily. "To get my own way, I suppose," she admitted in a sulky mumble. "And- to take control… when you can't trust anyone, sometimes making them afraid of you is your best option."

"Right, then you should know two things. Firstly, you'll always get your own way with me. Getting your own way is your superpower. You don't need to ask, let alone threaten, because that will always be the case. And secondly, I can promise you very little in all honesty, but what I can give you is trust. You can't frighten me. But you can put faith in me, and believe me when I tell you I'll accept you without question or judgement."

Her empty mug clinked against the bench and a little shrug rolled her shoulders, though the glisten in the rims of her eyes caught the light and gave her away. She'd always had a little trouble with kindness given how very little she was shown it. "Apparently you're the only person willing to. The one person in existence who actually appears to like me and I go and murder him; what does that say?"

He was physically aching, but it wasn't her loneliness that pained him; it was the knowing that he had spent centuries with her, yet had utterly failed to discover it. "It says you're very, very good at hard-to-get."

Making her laugh was his joy. "And now you're wrapping me up in pyjamas and giving me tea… which says you're really rather soft."

He recognised the look in her eyes as they swept over him, slightly narrowed in concentration, and wondered what conclusions she was coming to in her head. He remembered all too well the days of deductions, seeking her out of the fires in the corners of the Universe where she liked to cause trouble, so he could orbit around her and attempt to work out just what it was that was fuelling this insatiable need to do so.

They were destined, by design, to be drawn to each other. What with River's Time Lord genetics he'd always assumed she'd felt the same intangible force dragging them together due to their intertwined timelines as he had, even in his early days; it was nice to see it so fresh in her, rather than blended into the unwavering and fierce love that she had always shown him.

"You have them too, don't you? Bad dreams," she asked softly, smiling at his blink of surprise. "No-one ever understands things like this unless they know how it feels. Thing is, people who've been abducted by aliens are rather hard to come by."

She'd been the only person in existence to whom he'd revealed many, many things; the night terrors were just one. He hadn't had much choice in it, just as she hadn't tonight; but when gripped in the panic and dizzying fear she had appeared like a guarding spectre, holding him close and soothing him like only she ever could.

"When I sleep," he admitted. "Which I try not to make a regular thing of."

"Same here. I wish I could stop them," River sighed. "I'd like to know what having a decent night's sleep feels like."

"With the life you've had so far, it's perfectly understandable," he settled for, keeping the knowledge that with his companionship and her bravery they would lessen over time locked in his head, no matter how desperately he wanted to release such information.

River was shockingly quiet; it was almost endearing, seeing her something less than ridiculously secure. Then again, it wasn't strictly the first time.

_If you ever loved me-_

He threw his concentration into listening intently to the rise and fall of her voice, violently pushing the memory away before it consumed him and darkness spread like a plague across the fabric of his mind.

"After the nightmares… I never know where I am when I wake up," River confessed, drawing one of her pyjama shirt buttons between her fingers and gazing down at it self-consciously. "And in those moments… I can feel everything they put in my head, everything they did, as if it's taking over me and there's nothing I can do to stop it." Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, pushing the mug around the table distractedly. "I've been conditioned my whole life, and I can't just make it go away," she murmured. "What if I hurt you?"

He shook his head firmly. "You won't hurt me."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

River looked up at him, and he found himself giving her a smile that was far too warm to be at peace with his current incarnation. He sort of regretted it when something changed in his not-yet-wife's countenance. "Listen, um…" She curled up in her chair, linking her fingers together awkwardly as he watched something within her shut down. "The thing is… I decided a long time ago- since I found out that I have a tendency to cause nothing but pain to the people I care about- that relationships are sort of a… no-go, for me."

The words hit him with a dull thud. Swallowing back his surprise that this was actually happening- the woman who had claimed him and named him the love of her life was _rejecting_ him- he opened his mouth but pressed it promptly shut again on realising that there was very little he could say to that apart from a drawn out, "…Ok," that came just long enough after her words to make things awkward.

Not sure whether to be smug that she was so incredibly wrong or to panic that she might be so incredibly right- what if this encounter had unwritten everything?- he gawped at her helplessly as he tried to determine which way to react without giving the game away when her eyes flitted up to his. "I assume that's probably not what you had in mind anyway- I can't imagine why someone like you would want much to do with someone like me… being a legendary time-travelling god must introduce you to so many incredible people."

He cleared his throat, shuddering a little at the term she had far too often honoured him with. He sort of wished that she was simply too young to realise her mistake, but even in her Professor days she'd labelled him as a deity, _her_ deity; he'd never understood that.

"It doesn't mean I'm entitled to like them."

Her giggle surprised him, given that his generally unpleasant grumbles were usually met with anything but- solid disapproval from Clara, to say the least. Evidently his face must have betrayed him and showed his joy, for a moment later River was looking unsettled once again. "See, that's what worries me."

"What worries you?"

"That look you keep giving me. I've only ever seen it on Rory's face when he looks at my mother. You were the same in Berlin." Her voice picked up speed as she commenced a rambling justification. After years of receiving a sultry wink or one-word catchphrase by way of explanation for anything and everything, it was almost too much. "No-one is supposed to look at me that way, and frankly, no-one should, because believe me… I'll only disappoint you." She smiled wanly. "There's a reason why my only two friends in the Universe are my parents."

He looked away, partly out of pain that the mention brought and largely because he was burning to tell her that there would come a day when no-one would ever believe that she'd had a friendless childhood. There would come a day when she'd be cherished, worshipped, even, by entire civilisations for being their saviour. Hating the rules he had enforced that meant he couldn't divulge such information, he let her carry on declining him.

"I know I go on with the whole flirting thing, and you seem… well, good enough to give up all my lives for. I know that must have seemed like a sort of- giant neon signal, but… the truth is, I- I didn't want to responsible for disappointing Amy and Rory… again. They said you were worth it, so I did it for them. And, really, I'd always been led to believe that I'd be murdering someone evil; I didn't want to be responsible for ridding the Universe of a good man."

"That's because you're a good woman," he said so quietly that it was almost to himself. "It's about time someone told you that. What they filled your head with, what they made you believe about yourself; none of it's true."

"I might believe that one day. Right now, I don't know who I'm supposed to be. Truth be told, the whole River Song thing did make me a little curious." She spoke it as if it was the name of a stranger, and with the way she glanced at him he assumed he was in the same category. "The way you kept saying that name as if… but, um, whatever that meant, whatever _she_ means- _I_ mean, to you, or…" She took another deep breath, selecting her words carefully as if trying to let him down gently. "What you whispered in my ear… I understand if you were just trying to save your own skin, it's what I would have done, but- it _was_ a lie, wasn't it?" She rolled her eyes to the ceiling before he could retort. "Right. Spoilers."

It was amazing how one evening could have opened his eyes so much to exactly what she was; seeing the way her own word stuck on her tongue uncomfortably was very telling. She'd always been amazing to him, flourishing effortlessly from a Pond into River because she knew it was what she was destined to do. He hadn't given much thought to how difficult that must have been, despite the constant expectation to be the Universe's Doctor that should really have evoked empathy.

"Anyway, I don't know what you're expecting of me, or of this woman I'm supposed to become, but honestly, I… I'm far better off alone. So."

Now that he saw her fear, her reluctance approaching dread and most of all her absolute refusal to be drawn into falling for him, she was all the more wonderful. The smile he gave wasn't out of complacency; it was out of the realisation that he was going to have to work to gain the love of the River he knew so well, as he rightly should have to for the devotion of such a loving and beautiful spirit. It had always taken him aback slightly, seeing such ferocious love in her in the place of hate that had been wired into her DNA.

He had always wondered what it was that had made her fall for him; years on, in the dark and lonely days at Trenzalore, he had mapped out their lives from the order in which she'd lived them. It had taken days, but as his memory was fraying with his body he had felt a desperate need to feel that connection again, the sort that made him believe love was a tangible spark that kept the fiery life in each living being burning. Once he had, he had observed- or at least believed to be true at the time- that their wedding, the day she'd declared that her love for him was powerful enough to outstay the entire Universe, was directly after the day that she had literally murdered him in their encounters.

Even he wasn't conceited enough to believe that she had restored him to life because she'd fallen in love with him in the space of thirty two minutes, no. Since all he knew about the stretch of time between was that she'd become an archaeologist, he had assumed in all his naivety and arrogance that she'd simply fallen in love with the accounts of him and the imprint he'd made in the fabric of the Universe so commonly recited in books. He'd been involved in more than enough lives and got caught up in the web of far too many historical events to earn his place in countless novellas.

Of course, now it was entirely possible that she had fallen for him due to meetings that he hadn't yet lived; though it was utterly flabbergasting to him what anyone in their right mind would see in him without the boyish façade. She certainly didn't seem to care for it so far; at least not in the way she would grow to.

He knew she would change her mind, of course. But it didn't make it any less thrilling, the knowledge that he'd have to pursue his wife of a millennium to ensure she became just that. He fell far short of patience in this body, and he didn't rightly care whether he was loved or hated- in fact, the latter was preferable. But, if there was going to be one person whose affections he wouldn't mind devoting his time to gain, it was always River.

He shrugged. "If that's what you want. Don't expect me to stop protecting you."

"Protecting me through pyjamas and tea?"

"What better way is there?" It was said with deadpan sincerity, but he looked up to find amusement sparkling in River's eyes. "What are you smiling at?"

"You're just so different to everything they taught me about you."

He shook his head, dancing his fingers along the table coyly. "You shouldn't believe hearsay."

"It's a bit strange, all of this," she mused suddenly, wiggling in her chair. "Well, to me; it's very… cosy. I feel as if I know you. Not from the Silence pouring poison about you into my head," she muttered defiantly. There was always that; a blatant refusal to allow the monsters that had plagued her childhood to own any part of her. "But I think it was Amy. She was _obsessed_ with you, do you know that? Adored you, right from when she was little. Maybe that's why it really doesn't feel like this is the second time we've met."

"The second time _you've_ met _me_ ," he reminded her.

"And then there's that. Explains why you're so forward."

"Excuse me?"

"Well if you'd only done Berlin too, I doubt you'd be inviting me in your little box and letting me sleep in your bed."

"I wouldn't be so sure; it was quite an eventful first date."

"Quite eventful is an understatement, don't you think? And it wasn't a date."

"If you say so."

"It wasn't. It was a murder mission."

"Not a very successful one."

"More's the pity," she grinned wickedly.

"Well. There's time yet. I've heard I test people's patience."

"Really? Can't _imagine_ why."

Day one: already mocking him. Some things never changed.


	6. Memoirs of a Madman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter explores how despite having said goodbye to her ghost, River still haunts the Doctor and as time passes he begins to hope for another encounter after running into her fresh from Berlin. Their past is also delved into, showing the Eleventh Doctor's emotional turmoil over having to soon face losing his wife. 
> 
> *Disclaimer: there are references and dialogue from previous Who episodes (Series four, five, seven and eight), and I do not own the original quotes from these which are cited in the chapter. A warning for very minor spoilers for episodes five, six and seven of the current series, for those who haven't yet seen it.

He clung to that last encounter more than he probably should have allowed himself to.

"I hope I'll see you again."

"Oh, you will. But not always looking like this."

"So you'll be younger again? And you won't have done all of this… that's going to be weird."

"You'll get used to it, believe me. Be sure not to give anything away."

"Oh… that can be dangerous, can't it? Paradoxes and… things like that." She had nodded slowly; endearing confusion on her face as something he'd so rarely had the privilege of seeing. "Well, I'm sure I'll manage. I'll have you know I'm rather good at keeping secrets. And I knew to expect this in Berlin… you knew so much about me, even then. You knew everything I'll become…"

"Spoilers," he'd reminded her with a smile. He enjoyed using that word far too much for his own good.

She'd stopped in the Tardis doorway, hair swishing vivaciously as she turned to him in confusion. "How will I find you? How am I ever supposed to track you down, when you travel through the whole of time and space?"

He'd drawn the brand new diary from his pocket and pressed it into her hands. "There is a certain profession you can enter into that would put you at an advantage there."

He'd left the rest to her; she was more than capable. Now she was out there in time, in his past and perhaps his future, learning to become herself. And he was left floating between the stars, remembering and ever so slightly hoping.

* * *

He accidentally-on-purpose overheard Clara telling Danny.

"The Doctor's got a _wife_?"

"Yes."

" _The_ Doctor? As in, the same grumpy- insane, old alien Doctor?"

"...Yeah."

"I got the impression that he was a bit of a loner."

"He is- was. Well. It's a long story, and- complicated, but- she was dead. Technically, uh, still is. They meet in the wrong order, you know, time travel and stuff."

"What's she like? Is she as mad as him?"

"Oh yeah, completely bonkers. But she's lovely. You should meet her, actually; I think you'd get along. Can't be worse than when you met the Doctor, anyway."

"What's she called?"

"Uhm. River Song."

" _River. Song_? Are you joking?"

"She's the Doctor's wife; were you really expecting her to have a normal name?"

Later on, she'd asked what the hell he was grinning at. By a distant miracle, enveloped as it was in the darkness of his soul, the hope began to grow.

And then he remembered.

* * *

_A terrible dream, composed of the past and soon to be reality._

_~ **Spoilers**_

_**Spoilers** _

_**Hush now** _

_**Spoilers** _

_**Spoilers** _

_**Spoilers** _

_Stop it_

_Stop it._

**_You and me_ **

_Stop-_

**_Time and Space_ **

_-It-_

**_You watch us run_ **

_Please stop this get this out_

_Of your head she's here she isn't dead you can find a way_

**_Not those times_ **

_You're going to change this you have to you can't be without her_

_You will turn to dust_

_Everything will_

_Change this rewrite it rewrite everything if it means she will be by your side_

**_Not one line_ **

_You could save her. Dare you to save her_

**_Don't you dare_ **

_Have to try. Have to do something_

**_There's nothing you can do_ **

_Not_

_Acceptable._

_Hoper of far flung hopes. Dreamer of impossible dreams. Was._

**_You turned up on my doorstep_ **

**_With a new haircut and a suit_ **

_No. I'm not ready_

**_The towers sang and you cried_ **

_River_

_Oh, River._

**_Hello Sweetie_ **

_Not yet._

_Just this once_

_Let me make a bargain_

_My life for hers_

_Anyone's life for hers_

_The whole Universe for her_

_Please_

_You know it doesn't work like that you sentimental idiot she's dead because of you_

_She's still here_

_Not for long._

**_When one's in love_ **

**_With an ageless God_ **

**_Who insists on the face_ **

**_Of a twelve-year-old_ **

**_One does one's best_ **

**_To hide the damage_ **

_I can never find the words_

_She trusted, trusts me_

_And I killed, am going to kill her_

_I led her, will lead her by the hand to her death just like I_

_Always_

_Do. ~_

_The Doctor awakes with a start from rare yet troubled sleep and quickly scrubs the tears away from his face, left trembling from the broken fragments of memories more terrifying than nightmares that find him in slumber._

_He is growing tired of this; the continuous battle that takes place constantly inside his head every time sleep eventually finds him like plagues find civilisations._

_River._

_River._

_She asked it yesterday, before she left. Again. She practically insisted on it. And not only is he fast running out of excuses not to go, but he is so very tired of lying to her._

_She keeps telling him that it will be good for him, for them. He needs to get out, to move on, she says, insists that a trip to somewhere as beautiful as the Singing Towers will work wonders for him and she doesn't understand-_

_The screaming of his own thoughts makes his ears ring day after miserable day. Even awake, he could never push thoughts of Darillium away and now it's bloody impossible because it's here, never again to be postponed or looked upon with dread as a far-off event. Very, very soon now, it will be a memory._

_He can't even begin to come to terms with that. Not so soon after Manhattan, the day that marked the end of all hope he used to cling to. He almost laughs out loud out of bitterness towards his own thoughts. So soon after. It's hardly soon. It's been months, maybe even years- he doesn't keep count, not now. All he knows is that impossible River, his wife, flickers effervescently in and out of his broken time. But not for much longer. No longer._

_He panics, battling against his own mutilated mind. He has a right to that; insanity is long overdue._

_She has to die. That's fixed._

_But he doesn't have to say goodbye._

_He could just leave her. It would be easy enough, just to never go back for her. It would kill him, yes, but compared to having to face Darillium it would be a piece of cake. Selfish, yes, but he's an awful man. Manhattan had showed him that. It probably wouldn't even surprise her._

_She's all he has left. How could he possibly leave her?_

_She's going to die anyway._

_He needs her._

_She would be better off without him. They all would._

_But she wouldn't. Because either way the Library still looms and it will come, one day in the horribly near future for the Professor who he dropped off yesterday with a kiss and a promise, the promise that he would no longer postpone that oh so wonderful trip she'd been insisting upon._

_Every day since Manhattan the same process flickers through his head, switching back and forth until he aches. Telling himself that he's going to drop her off and never come back, because he can't do it anymore, he can't pretend that every day isn't just a deferral of sending her to her death._

_But every day, when he looks into those brilliant, fiery eyes of hers, he can't quite bring himself to do it. He feels foolish, for being led so easily, for being so- human. It's so unlike him. But this is his River Song. River Song has always been the exception to everything. Had._

_Doesn't matter anyway. Whatever he feels about what is now today, nothing in this Universe or the next is going to change it. And it's damn well unfair._

_He turns up that day. Because he promised. He turns up on her doorstep with a new haircut and a suit._

_He shivers. He'll spend a long time shivering, taking shelter among the rainclouds of Earth, as he's already resolved to do after the Towers sing their final song. He'll shiver, because River will not be there to keep him warm. Never again._

* * *

The memories, though still painful, did little to deter him. At first it rendered him wary, loath to disturb what had been a life broken yet perfect in its own way.

But along with the worst of memories came the best of ones, nostalgic flickers of mad days spent leading their merry dance across time. And he would allow embedded arrogance to momentarily eclipse him.

Why?

_Why_ did things have to be the way they were? He was a Time Lord. A _lord_ of actual _time_. Nothing and no-one was to dictate to him when he was allowed to see his wife.

Then his determined hands would grip the console, ready to pull the handbrake and hurtle across the stars to find her when-

_Doctor, please tell me you know who I am_

_This means you've always known how I was going to die_

_My time_

_Time to come to the Library_

_How are you even doing that? I'm not really here_

_If you ever loved me_

_Say it like you're going to come back_

_Goodbye, sweetie._

-all at once, a crescendo screaming in his head that would leave him shaking just like the days when it was yet to come.

Admittedly, the Doctor had grown a bit uncharacteristically eager after her last visit. He had this mild infatuation with believing every second of every day that she would burst through the doors trailing smoke with a Cheshire-cat grin on her face.

Not that he would dream of telling Clara- or anyone for that matter- but there may have been a list residing in his jacket pocket that he had spent several days working on. The paper had creased under the time and effort it bore, crammed full to the corners of scrawled names; each one a place they could go together, a place she'd love, if their timelines were to coalesce again.

Optimism. Schoolboy error.

Still, even when the list curled at the edges he kept seeing her, in every godforsaken place he ended up drifting to.

A mere bounce of wild curls out of the corner of his eye, a swish of elegant hips, a tap of crimson heels, and his mind would be off with his feet.

"Doctor! Where the hell did you wander off to?" Clara had panted, finally after god only knows how long having caught up with him in a crowded Frenko Bazaar halfway across the galaxy. He'd hastily conjured up a vague lie, eyes dropping with ill-concealed disappointment from the woman with the right manic hair but, when she'd eventually turned, the wrong face.

* * *

He was a slave to his own memoirs.

"Doctor, we're going to crash if you don't _do_ something! Doesn't it have some sort of, I don't know, stabilisers?!"

_Use the stabilisers!_

"No!"

"Are you lying? Oh my god, you are! Doctor!"

_The blue switches!_

"DOCTOR!"

"They're BORING!"

_Yes, they're blue! They're the blue stabilisers!_

"Shut up, shut, shut, shut up!"

"What?"

"Nothing!"

It happened on a shockingly regular basis; though to be fair, it hadn't just started since the night of tea and bad dreams. At first, once he'd shaken off the hopeful possibility that her data ghost still lingered to whisper to him every now and then, he believed that he had finally gone certifiably insane. But when time crawled on and he could still _hear_ her thoughts in his head-

_She's on a date, my love. Let her grow up. They all have to one day._

_If I had a vault in that bank, I'd keep you in it._

_Sweetie, you're far too much of an exhibitionist to go undercover._

_You can't leave her on the moon, you stupid man!_

_-_ he drew the conclusion that this regeneration's conscience had acquired quite a voice, and one unquestionably familiar at that.

Memories came flickering through, too, and thinking about her came with consequences that he couldn't quite control.

"River and I, we had this big fight..."

_I should damn well hope you're sorry. What's that god awful smell? It's like wet fur. You're not coming near me until you've had a bath._

"Do you want to see the Thames frozen over?"

_Are you sure about this? Ice skating with your coordination skills?_

"Oh, those frost fairs!"

_Sweetie… is that Stevie Wonder?_

The problem was he'd been enticed into the concept that he may have been able to make things better. He'd believed that maybe, just maybe, seeing her at her start was the beginning of a blessed second chance, a chance to do things as properly as he could afford to given their unsynchronised lives.

His mind did dangerous things. When alone he developed a rather morbid habit of calculating for how many days _she_ must have been alone- at Luna, in Stormcage, and stuck wandering faraway planets she'd chosen at random out of sheer boredom- and familiar guilt would curdle in his stomach. He'd dream up the things they could have done, the wonderful things he could have shown her instead of leaving her on her own for months on end, as he knew he had only by memories of her passing comments.

He could never quite let it go; which was probably just as well, given what one lonely evening in the near future turned into.


	7. And the Dance Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The (twelfth) Doctor's second encounter with his wife tells him that she is far from lost. Those who were enjoying young River, never fear! Later chapters will feature the Doctor encountering his wife early in her timestream. Timey wimey!

"Sorry. I'm having dinner with Danny."

"You're _what_?" the Doctor yelled down the phone, deciding to ignore that he could _hear_ his friend roll her eyes. "You're giving up what could be an amazing, life-changing adventure to have chips with your boyfriend? Clara, what happened to you? Did you lose your sanity somewhere? I've heard that does happen in relationships-"

"Doctor." He heard her sigh, and an inaudible mutter in the background.

"Is that Danny? Look…" He took a deep breath, wincing at his own words. "Bring him along, if you really must. I suppose I can accommodate him, though to be honest he's only going to get in the way-"

"We're having _dinner_ , Doctor," she said slowly, as if he didn't speak her language.

He spluttered on, slightly insulted and very exasperated. Humans. Didn't they have any sense of priority? The Universe was waiting at her fingertips! "Well- you could have dinner out here! There's a lovely little restaurant in the Shadoya Galaxy with a glass floor, and the view is-"

"We're fine with Earth, thanks."

His shoulders sagged. "What am I supposed to do with my evening?"

"You're inventive. I'm sure you'll find something. Ok? See you when I see you. Got to go."

The line went dead. Grumbling mild curses at it, he placed it back on the hook and ambled around the controls without purpose, failing to notice in his sulky state that the rotor had ground to a halt.

Possible solitary trips ambled through his head with all the enthusiasm of Clara when he brought her to analyse types of rock. Of the entire Cosmos, he could think of nowhere that bore enough value to visit without having the privilege of seeing it new through someone else's eyes. The Universe was an exceedingly dark place without someone to share it with.

The numbing peace was shattered before he could process it. The Doctor wheeled around at the sound of the doors bursting open in dramatic fashion, bristling with instinctive defence and resenting whatever had brought about the sudden interlude in what had been a perfectly good sulk. "What in the name of _sanity_ …" he hissed under his breath, scowling at the silhouette shining through the smoke that cloaked it.

It turned out, as a matter of fact, to be nothing within the bounds of sanity at all. The irritated mutter was all that could pass his throat before his eyes drank in the swish of hips, the thunder of heels and the impossible bounce of hair, and it tightened with pleasurable discomfort as if swallowing barbed wire and honey. In strolled his wife, clicking her fingers to snap the doors shut behind her as she talked.

"What a _day_!" The words turned his bones into fizzing livewires. The Doctor watched her as if trapped in a web as River spun around him. "Gosh, those Halitosis Mushrooms certainly know how to talk! But they do make a good stew. Don't worry - extractor fans on! - don't worry, I brushed my teeth. The weather was divine on Hondran; managed to get myself a nice tan. Came across a few Untra; I was curious as to what they did with all those extra arms… needless to say that question didn't go down well. Long story short, those engravings in the hills- _fascinating_ \- gave me some juicy material for my next dissertation. Fingers crossed; if this one's good enough, perhaps I'll be an inch closer to earning my pardon. At the very least I'll shave off a couple of my life sentences- only eleven hundred and forty seven to go!"

She finished her soliloquy with a radiant smile that hit his skin like the warmth of the sun, more vibrant, more _real_ than he had ever remembered her to be.

"River," he breathed, fixated on her as she skipped around the rotor merrily and flicked at levers with effortless grace.

It had been a while since she had last turned up, fresh from Berlin; roughly eight months, going by Clara's ageing. It had certainly been long enough for him to quietly accept that perhaps the encounter had been a one-off.

"Sweetie," she chirped back, mistaking his utterance of awe for a greeting. "Ok! What's the plan, then? Business, pleasure, danger, fun? Although it's all one and the same with us, isn't it?"

She threw her head up to grin at him, making her springy curls bob about her shoulders.

He shook his head confusedly, wringing his hands because it was all he could do when a little bit lost in an enthralled stupor. "Plan?"

"Yes, plan." She swivelled the monitor around to examine it, smiling to herself as the Tardis hummed under her touch. "Was it ambitious of me to assume that you had one? Is this going to be another spontaneous date that ends in near death? Not that I mind."

It had been a long while since someone had been able to rival his volume of speech; River had been one of the only people capable of such a thing. In spite of the fact that she was talking faster than he'd remembered her ever doing- _rambling_ , even- with an effervescent bounce in her voice that he swore he hadn't noticed in all the years before. It threw him off enough for her to notice.

"You look a little startled, dear," she mused. Her heels tapped out a rhythm on the floor as she closed the distance between them without any sort of warning- which he really felt he could have done with- to inspect him. "Wait a second. Are you _new_?"

"Relatively," he answered vaguely, not wanting to see that disappointment on her face that he always saw set in- despite her attempts to conceal it- whenever he wasn't as far along in their lives as she wanted him to be. It may have been a very long time since having the privilege of encountering this River, _his_ River, but he had never for an instant forgotten that expression.

"Ah," she whispered pensively, clearly deducing something he was unaware of. "So is this the first time you've seen me through these eyes?" she asked him, tracing the crinkled skin under his eyes with a light finger.

They were so close now that he could see each particle of light playing with the flashes of colour in her eyes, the eyes that at this beautiful point in her timeline shone with so much life and love; love for him. He'd forgotten how that felt. "Second."

"Oh." He thought he saw her relax at that, before curiosity overcame her. Her eyes narrowed into that playful interrogation mode she was so skilled at. "When was the first? Or am I still to expect that privilege?"

He loved River for not giving away how much the mere thought pained her. "Afraid not. That was when you found me after Berlin."

He watched her eyes flicker as she rewound the memory in her head and surprise seeped into her features. "Really? Well. You did a good job of hiding that."

"I always do."

His wife- his _wife_ , the word was exhilaratingly strange when freshly rewoven into the fabric of his mind- hummed, giving him that flicker of a smile again as if knowing what it did to him and relishing in it. "Berlin was the first time I saw this you, too…" she realised. "Funny. It doesn't usually happen like that." A beautiful full grin broke across her face. "We shared a first, sweetie; I'd say that gives us reason to celebrate, wouldn't you?"

"What do you have in mind?"

He watched her eyes trail across him before they snapped back up, gleaming devilishly. "Dancing!"

He scoffed dramatically, shaking her head as if he could actually ever hope to persuade her out of one of her magnificently bizarre date ideas. "No, no, no. _No_. I don't dance."

"No," she retorted, lacing her warm fingers through his and pulling him to the controls. He relented limply, still at odds with this body as to how to react with such close contact. Merely being in the same room as the very woman with whom he had shared many nights was enough to make him feel his pulses in his fingertips. "The old you didn't dance. Well, you were all elbows and knees back then, weren't you? The amount of times I had to apologise on behalf of your flailing limbs," she smirked. "But _now_ , Doctor… you've got quite the moves." She chuckled, pressing a kiss to his cheek and wiping the wary look from his face in the process. "Trust me?"

"Do I have a choice?" he asked, deadpan voice concealing his fluttering hearts. He concentrated on keeping his hands stuck to his sides as if it was something his lives depended upon, adamant that this body did not, did _not_ , engage in… _canoodling_ , of any kind. Even if his wife was easily close enough for his hands to reach around her hips, and yes, even if she was smiling at him like he was the centre of the Cosmos, and it did not make any difference whatsoever that her dress was the same shade as her painted lips or that her hair could have pulled meteorites out of orbit and was just _asking_ to have a pair of hands run through it. No. Difference. At. All.

"Of course not."

He blinked, wondering how she could possibly be responding to the self-convincing going on in his head before realising with admitted relief that she was answering his original question. Apparently, the very brief period in which their roles had been reversed was most certainly over; not that he minded. That being said his vision bore a surreal haze at the edges with the sensation of floating through a dream. He was slightly afraid to take his eyes off her, genuinely believing that there was a good chance that perhaps he'd inhaled a speck of psychic pollen and it was only a matter of time until he would wake up, alone. It wouldn't have been the first time.

He hadn't exactly missed her for that reason, because in some form or another she'd been there. Not to anyone else, or anyone possessing a scrap of sanity, at least. He was rather certain that Clara had started to worry, what with the amount of times she had wandered in to discover him having an intense conversation with thin air.

It had been easier that way, in all candour. It was always far more simple to converse with a figment of the imagination than the living, breathing, _shining_ being currently gracing around the console at effortless speed.

"How's Clara?" He must have rolled his eyes at that, because River looked up and gave him a reprimanding tut. "Oh dear; have you two fallen out again? What did you do this time?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I'll have you know I didn't do anything, thank you very much!"

"Hmm; when have I heard _that_ before?" He was about to retaliate when her chuckle threw him off. Had he even heard her laugh like that before?

It wasn't the usual controlled, sultry laugh that he couldn't have possibly forgotten for what it had done to him. It seemed far less measured; as a matter of fact, everything about her did.

She nudged him out of the way with her hip to fiddle with the controls. "Be nice to her, sweetie. She's very good. And I doubt anyone else would put up with you."

River's comment was ignored in favour of more important things at hand. There was something different in her that he couldn't quite place; she was still unquestionably the woman he'd fallen for, with the playfully withering comments, the heels and the hair and the everything- especially the everything. But there was something new. Something that wasn't part of the smokescreen; something wonderful.

"Oh, honey, I do believe you've got that face on again!"

His eyebrows sprang up his forehead at her cry. She was watching him intently, looking far too amused. "I'm sorry, what face?"

"The, 'Dear God, My Wife is _Fabulous_ ,' face."

"This is my normal face," he told her with exasperated confusion, before the memory came pinging back to him as the words left her lips.

"It certainly is."

He was compelled to smile; rare, in this body. Damned woman, breaking all his new rules. Making him _smile_ and everything.

"When are you?" he decided to ask, as a means of making it seem as if his staring at her for what was frankly an embarrassing length of time was actually heading somewhere.

Her eyes flickered away from his as she considered the question, allowing him to breathe again. "I've just done- well, spoilers. Let's see…"

He restrained himself from physically leaping into the air at hearing the word that indicated times yet to come, as she pulled that gorgeous little blue book from her pocket and flicked through it with the deftness of an expert.

"Oh, yes! Crash of the Byzantium wasn't long ago for me. I know you've done that."

Still relatively young, then; old enough to know him inside out, of course, but not yet a Professor. Old relief washed over him, though it was now irrational; the night of the Singing Towers he'd for so long dreaded was now a distant memory. And here she was.

He remembered telling her father about miracles, once. If only their Ponds could see them now.

The Doctor's hands joined River's at the controls, firing life into the rotor. "Well then, Doctor Song. Let's dance."


	8. Deadly Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter! Sorry, wrong. Or right, depending on timelines and such…
> 
> Hello! So, here it is; the Doctor and River dancing... well, attempting to. You know what they're like. Please enjoy! x

"I was thinking of Fara Fentusia; definitely one of the most beautiful ballrooms on Creyta, you know, planet of waltzing." River demonstrated her point by pirouetting around him gracefully, plotting in the coordinates. "It's so… _flamboyant_."

"You'll fit right in." His remark was laughed at, and he realised that the amount of times he had made her do that this evening very probably outnumbered the amount of times he'd made people smile with this face.

"So will you, dear. Shall I pick out a tie for you?"

The Doctor winced at the implication of such formality. "Are we really doing this?"

"You were the one who said, _let's dance_." She dropped her voice into a gravelly purr, putting on a surprisingly impressive imitation of his Scottish lilt.

He narrowed his eyes at her back as she flounced up the stairs, dusting her fingertips over the banister as she went and making the Tardis sing in returned greeting. "It was more of a figurative-"

"Shush. Black or blue?"

"Am I choosing the colour of the bruise you'll give me if I don't take you dancing?"

Her laughter seemed to be all around him. "You don't get a choice in that. No, I meant which colour dress. I'm torn."

His head shot up from the controls, incredulous. "You're asking _me_? I thought you'd rather die than get fashion advice from me – in fact, I think those may have been your exact words…"

"Oh, sweetie," she sang fondly, appearing on the upstairs balcony a moment later. "You're so shiny and new, it's endearing. I didn't ask _last_ you for fashion advice."

"Why?"

"I'll give you a moment to decide whether you _really_ need to ask that."

"The bow tie wasn't that ba-"

"The _fez_."

"…Agreed, that was a low point. But you liked the bow tie."

She gasped, looking genuinely offended or at least making a good job of pretending. He'd never been able to tell. "Whatever gave you that idea? But you know, even if you look like a magician now at least the hats are gone. It's certainly an improvement. Now, what do you think-" She held up a dress in each hand. "Black or blue?"

"I don't care," he answered flatly, determined not to be sucked into such domestic little quirks.

"Because I'll look irresistibly sexy in either of them – why thank you, sweetie!" She grinned down at him.

He folded his arms indignantly. "Blue."

* * *

"Oh, this'll _do_!"

The light bounced off the crystal chandeliers and sparkled in River's eyes as they roamed the ballroom, her arm linked in her husband's firmly.

The Doctor cleared his throat, nudging at the black tie his wife had insisted upon – she'd tried to fasten it for him, but that would have involved more close contact than he was currently ready for, however admittedly stunning she may have looked in that flowing Tardis-coloured dress. "You know, there's probably a terribly dangerous invasion going on somewhere nearby…" he muttered wistfully.

"Oh, no you don't. I've had enough of those this month, thank you." She raised an eyebrow at him pointedly.

He raised one right back, reminding her, "It was you who led me to the Byzantium crash in the first place."

"Well, it was the only way to get your attention! You're hard work young." He caught the momentary falter in her smile, but she seemed to inflate again upon realising his gaze was on her. "Although, I can't say you being all scared of me isn't a perk."

"I wasn't _scared_ of you."

"Whatever you say, dear." His hand was clasped in hers before he had a chance to conjure up a retort, pulling him through the ocean of beautifully dressed strangers. "Come on, let's buy me a drink."

The Doctor frowned at her as she hoisted herself onto a barstool, smoothing out her dress. "So you came to me, to get away from… me?" he asked slowly, head buzzing from the music and from processing the surreal nature of hearing her complain about something so distant in his past that it felt like another man's memories. "Is that what we do now?"

"Sweetie," she warned in a singsong voice, "You're going to realise a lot of things in the near future, and I'm not giving anything away. It'll ruin all the fun! Oh, they do some fabulous Earth drinks here. Let's see… can I get a glass of red wine, and… an Old Fashioned, yeah? He's paying."

"I don't have money," he confessed bluntly when the bartender gave him an expectant look.

River rolled her eyes. "Always a gentleman. You're pretty, but you're not being my date _every_ time. I'd tell you to start carrying money, but I know from past experience that it would clearly go over your head." She reached down the front of her dress to pull out a wad of notes, smirking at the disapproving curl of his eyebrows. "What? I don't have pockets. My lipstick's down there too."

"I didn't ask." He took a tentative sip of the drink she'd ordered him, swirling the ice in its glass.

There was a sliver of pure glee in her voice at having the upper hand. "Look at you, being a grown-up. No Jammie Dodgers in sight; I have to say I'm pleased. So, do you like your drink?"

"Yes. I'm assuming you knew that."

"You're catching on."

He shot her a withering glance. "I caught onto spoilers quite some time ago."

"But this is still strange to you." River's voice was suddenly soft, and it was enough to melt the scowl right off his face as she reached across to twirl the ring on his finger with a little smile. "I know; it's old because it's us, but it's been so long that it's new." She smiled at him, and he had a very strong feeling that an older version of himself had given her those exact words when reminiscing about this night.

_So long_. She knew about Trenzalore. He voluntarily told her, then, future him, about leaving their lives behind for a thousand years? That didn't seem right. Unless she'd just known, and had stood by and let it happen. "River-"

She cut across him, shaking her head. "But you'll adjust soon enough, and you'll find out everything you're wondering, but not before you're due; that's how we work. In the meantime…" her glass clinked against his, "You may as well enjoy a drink with your wife. And we haven't even got to that dancing you promised… now seems like a good time, don't you think?"

The Doctor wasn't allowed to finish his beverage. His wife swung them away from the bar and into the lazily swaying waves of tuxedos and satin dresses, smiling down his protesting scowl until it had no choice but to dissolve away. He was far too soft where she was concerned, he'd concluded after just two encounters with her in this body. But then again, she really didn't leave him much choice when she was being all River-esque- he was certain that he could class that as an adjective, seeing as being River seemed to entail so very many things that he had never quite succeeded in pinning down. "What? It's not like you were going to ask. I'm used to taking matters into my own hands with you."

"I'm not overly fond of the power balance between you and I."

"Is it classed as a balance if one of us has absolutely no power whatsoever?" She pressed herself against him with a satisfied purr so that they were perfectly aligned.

"Well, exactly." They were dangerously close to dancing- there was no sign of the spontaneous invasion or bloody battle he'd sort of hoped would occur, as a means of distracting River enough that she wouldn't coerce him into performing such _close_ , too close a task for a man who'd existed for so long in the absence things like this. "Listen, I'm really not much of a-" His bumbling protests were silenced as his hand was clasped in hers and dragged to her hip, where it really had no choice but to settle. He could only sigh in a fond sort of exasperation.

River's chuckle fizzed through him like those sparklers Earth children used to write their names across the dark. "There, now; that wasn't too hard, was it?"

His eyes narrowed, sensing the challenge within the hint of condescension playing in River's tone. His free hand pulled hers up to rest on his shoulder, equalling them.

She raised an eyebrow, apparently impressed. "Are you sure you can keep up with me, sweetie?"

"I've been practising half my life. I'm sure. After all…" River's indigo dress billowed out around her ankles as he twirled her, the catch in her breath just audible over the music telling him he'd caught her off guard and giving him a ridiculous amount of self-satisfaction. "It's only dancing."

His wife smiled up at him unashamedly, a natural pink tint along her cheeks with the joy of being almost literally swept off her feet. "There's my boy."

" _Boy_?"

"Shhh, now; dancing," she whispered emphatically, giving a little shimmy of her hips.

He obliged reluctantly, finding their time to the unhurried rhythm of music. "This is very… domestic, for you," he observed, whispering it against the shell of her ear.

"Hmm?"

"Well, you know." Their faces were shrouded from each other's, River's forehead resting comfortably on his shoulder. "You're usually dragging me into a war zone or something by this point in the evening…"

"I'm still the woman you know and love, dear. I have my revolver strapped to my thigh in case of emergencies."

"That's what that is… I must say I'm relieved." The Doctor was slightly taken aback by his own wit. Was he bantering? Was he using… _innuendos_? He blamed her completely for this.

River giggled. "Shush."

"I will shush."

He was determined to stay true to his word, and this resolve along with the pair of melting emerald eyes roaming over him like no eyes had in a long time kept his eyes focussed on the graceful swish of their intertwined feet.

"You know… with spiders, if the male's dance isn't up to scratch… the female eats him."

The Doctor's brow crinkled at his wife's remark. " _What_?"

"Just a gentle warning, sweetie. Your posture is terrible." He heard the knowing smile in her voice before she- without warning- cupped his chin and pulled his head up so that he very involuntarily met her gaze. "You're supposed to look into your partner's _eyes_ as you dance, dear; it's one of the most basic rules."

He scoffed lightly. "Please. I know how to dance."

"Prove it."

Prove it he did, because even if he wasn't quite sure how to look at her just yet, even if he was still in disbelief that this was more than a mere psychic pollen dream, she'd told him he could dance.

They swept around the floor with the sort of deftness usually reserved for conquering hostile worlds, putting to shame even the species with several legs who skulked off to the corners in surrender. The Doctor barely noticed, determined not to earn another scathing comment for substandard waltzing skills. Every sense was filled with all things River, spicy perfume and low chuckles and the light buzz of her mind dancing around the outskirts of his, letting a stray thought drift through to him every now and then. He forgot whatever the dance hall might have looked like, enveloped by the cerulean shades his wife was wrapped up in. She was having the time of her life, apparently; perfectly painted full lips now stretched into a smirk because she knew full well that he was no longer just looking at her for the sake of the dance.

Damn it.

"Help! Oh, mother of God, please help me!"

The shrill cry was startling, as was the wild-eyed, crimson-skinned woman careening into them before they'd had time to draw their eyes out of each other's. Their accidental assailant, also the source of the screams that had so rudely disturbed their evening, clutched onto them both helplessly.

"Please, you have to do something! It's after me, oh great Gods, it's going to kill me!"

"What's going to kill you?"

River nudged the Doctor in the ribs, pointing in the direction of the entrance. "Just a hunch, sweetie, but I think she _may_ be talking about the very cross-looking android in the doorway."

The woman freshly recoiled in horror at the sight of her attacker, a rusty-looking thing with a somewhat menacing red neon strip for an eyepiece. "He was my domestic servant," she whimpered, clutching onto River's arm. "I made him myself, but – he's developed a fault!"

"You don't say," River remarked wryly.

"But it's - it's got a gun for an arm!" the Doctor cried incredulously. "That's got to be rubbish at serving tea! Why would you construct a slave droid with a build-in weapon?"

The woman shrugged sheepishly. "I was thinking of using him for… avenging purposes."

"Of course you were." They ducked as a bolt of fire sailed over their heads, smashing into the bottles behind the bar. The woman hurtled away, pleading with numerous deities to preserve her life.

Danger. There could have been an audible ping in each of their souls as their eyes ignited. "You got this?" the Doctor asked River breathlessly.

"Oh, yes." She flashed him a wicked grin as her hand dipped under her dress, pulling out a very familiar alpha meson blaster. "A rusty robot with bad aim; at least give me a challenge," she quipped, eyeing the sonic disdainfully as he drew it from his pocket. "And what are you planning on doing with _that_?"  
He cocked an eyebrow. "It does a lot more than build cabinets." It took a single press for the doors of the dance hall to burst off their hinges, freeing their fellow dancers to hurtle to safety.

"My hero," his wife purred, letting him revel in her impressed smile for a moment before she twirled away and was lost to the flurry of chaos. Ears filled with the boom of exchanged gunfire, almost carried away by the stampede of people running for their lives until they ebbed away and it was just River whirling around him, firing the final shots into the droid; he'd forgotten what it was like to feel so _alive_.

River sighed contentedly, draping her arm around his shoulder so the still-warm blaster rested against his chest. "One of these days, sweetie, we'll finish a dance."

"I wouldn't put money on it," the Doctor muttered, pushing the gun away with a scowl.

She was prancing away in the direction of the Tardis before the smoke had settled. "Oh, but it's so much more fun this way, don't you think?"

It had taken over a thousand years to admit, but yes, he really did.


	9. Book Mountains and Silver Linings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A paper avalanche leads to the Doctor being characteristically grumpy, River being uncharacteristically sweet, and a sparky new dynamic that is somehow just like old times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise deeply for the inexcusable amount of time that it has taken for this chapter to be posted; life is incredibly hectic at the moment. Anyway, thank you all for your patience and support, and I hope you enjoy this. Bear in mind, as it follows on from the previous chapter, it’s set about midway through series 8. x

The Doctor felt the distantly familiar tingle of River’s eyes on him as soon as he set foot in the Tardis. Her hands busy polishing her gun, she stood with one hip propped against the console and a thoroughly mischievous smile on her face.

Still out of breath from their near-death experience – well, perhaps that was exaggerating a smidge, but that’s what it would be when he told Clara about this – her chest rose and fell almost aggressively, and her burning eyes seemed to pin him down when he slipped in and clicked the door shut. “How long did you say you’d been in this body?” she asked, tossing her gun to the side and stalking up to him.

“Just under a year,” he answered, reluctant for a reason he wasn’t quite sure of as he skirted past her to the console.

“Damn. A little too early, then.”

“Early?” he echoed incredulously, shooting her a sharp glance with his hand hovering over the handbrake.

She grinned, breathlessness making her voice hitch. “I’ve got some training to do.”

She knew full well what she was doing; that _voice_ , the one she’d only ever dare to use when they were alone and the one that he’d gone without hearing for a millennium, was enough to make his hand slip against the controls. One aggressive shudder from the Tardis later, there was an almighty clatter as an avalanche of books toppled off the shelves around them.

“Oh dear,” River muttered loftily, eyeing the now empty bookshelves.

“Oh, _brilliant_!” the Doctor cried furiously, gaping at the chaotic lumps of books around them before turning to glower at River from under his eyebrows. “She finally became stable enough for me to have books in the console room-”

“You mean you finally learned to fly her properly?” River corrected, the corners of her mouth upturned.

“Well – no – well – it doesn’t matter, does it, because you just come along and turn – literally turn everything upside down!” he yelled, kicking a book at his feet.

“It’s _my_ fault, is it?”

“It’s completely your fault! Being all, all, all…” Words died on his lips as he paused to glance over her and the anger threatened to dissolve. “Distracting,” he settled for, and even that ended up sounding far more like a compliment than he’d have liked.

River apparently classed it as such, or just was nonplussed by the insult. “I apologise profusely for being a distraction,” she purred lowly, rolling her eyes at his annoyed huff. “Sweetie, it’s fine! We can just put the books back,” she soothed, a hint of amusement dancing along her face.

“No- we can’t just _put them back_!” the Doctor scoffed bitterly, scowling at her as if she’d just uttered the most ridiculous thing ever said by any living creature. “Look at this!” he wailed, kicking the pile of books and motioning wildly to the shelves with hands like angry propellers to demonstrate his point. “They were all in special sections, in alphabetical order, cross referenced-!” He stopped and gritted his teeth, genuinely looking close to tears.

“You should have used the stabilisers.”

“The stabilisers- are- _boring_ ,” he recited impatiently.

River rolled her eyes. “Well, you will insist on flying her on your own. You should know by now that that’s rather ambitious of you.”

He wheeled around to face her, stalking forwards with heavy steps that thundered against the console floor. “Would it be also be ambitious of me to ask you not to mock me at every given opportunity?” He flung his arm around, sweeping it across the empty shelves. “I am very cross about this!”

River choked back a laugh, making absolutely no attempt to help him whatsoever. “It’s not mockery if it’s the truth, dear. You will insist on being proud; if you’d just let me fly, those books would still be on their shelves. _I_ would have put the stabilisers on.”

“Yes, ok, I don’t need your guidance, thank you very much. You’re hardly qualified to give anyone life advice, the definition of a loose screw that you are.” He waved her away dismissively. “Just go away if you’re not going to be supportive. I want to be alone.”

She gawped after him, half a hysterical lopsided grin on her face. “Are you _really_ going to sulk about this? They’re books!”

“Better company than people,” he muttered under his breath. “They don’t answer back. Like _otters_.”

“Sorry?”

“Ugh! Spoilers.”

Deflated, the Doctor rested with his back to the console and folded his arms indignantly. His lips pursed in a thin line paired with his deeply furrowed brow made him appear the living embodiment of a thunderstorm.

He tensed when River’s arms snaked around his waist without warning, wriggling and wincing in discomfort when she hugged him close and pressed her nose firmly into his shoulder. Not entirely sure what was happening, he kept his arms tightly crossed and regarded her with a disturbingly wary expression when she blessedly let go. “What was that for? I’m trying to sulk here, you can’t just cuddle me without even asking permission, that’s a massive invasion of-!”

“Oh, shut up, you ridiculous man. I’m your wife! I’ll hug you if I damn well please.” A sweetly victorious grin on her face, River cupped his face in her hands and reached up on her tiptoes to press a warm kiss to his cheek, staying just close enough when she pulled back that he could see the tiny flecks of gold shimmering in her eyes as his darted between them anxiously. His folded arms fell limply to his sides, eyebrows pinching together, and she simply winked before releasing him from her embrace and prancing over to a lopsided book mountain. “Come on, then! Let’s get these put back, and get that frown off your pretty face.” The Doctor gazed after her dumbly, all the rambles and grand speeches dissolving into nothing.

He’d wondered, secretly, what it would be like. What _they_ would be like; if it would be different, if it would change everything as it had with Clara or if it wouldn’t change anything at all.

In a way, it had been both. This wasn’t a version of his wife that he’d seen often, if ever; like suddenly observing a new brushstroke in your favourite painting, a single line that suddenly gave it a whole new level of meaning.

He could have just loved it. Could have embraced it, gone with it, with her, as he had before; but it had been a thousand years, and millions of deaths, and he’d have been a fool if all of that hadn’t rendered him more wary of the sort of intimacy that seemed to be creeping into the cracks time had made between him and her.

River cocked an eyebrow at him, a pile of books balanced precariously in her arms. “Well, are you just going to stand there?”

“But I was being cross, you’re- that’s wrong,” he spluttered. “Wrong. You’re wrong.”

“I’m wrong, am I?”

“Yes, you are! Because you’re not supposed to be all…!” He gestured vaguely with his arms. “You’re faulty! Unless- do you have some sort of ulterior motive? Are you plotting to kill me again or- is that why you’re being nice?”

The fond roll of her eyes as she placed the books back on their shelves in _exactly_ the right places without even giving it a second thought was frighteningly thrilling. One had to spend an awful lot of time in a place to know the order of books on the shelves, but that was a thought far too optimistic to be in keeping with this body, so he pushed it away. “And don’t hug me. _You_ never hug me; you do everything else but. It’s,” his hands scrambled in the air for a word, settling for one that Clara liked to use- often to describe him. “Freaky!”

“What? I hug you _all_ the…” Something popped in her eyes. “ _Oh_. Goodness me, you really _are_ new, aren’t you?”

“Well, if it’s such a problem for you then feel free to leave.” It wasn’t a wish; more of a challenge, as he supposed the whole book tantrum had been. To be perfectly truthful he was a little stupefied, given that the prickly temper he seemed to be doing a splendid job of exemplifying tonight seemed to be more a point of amusement for her than anything else. It had driven everybody else away; though perhaps he’d been a fool ever to lump River Song into the same class as the rest of the Universe.

“I never said it was a problem. Sweetie,” she sighed, fondness coating her voice like sugar. “In case you’ve forgotten, if something happens to be new to you then we can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be to me. I know a _lot_ of things about this body.” He crossed his arms in self-defence as her predatory eyes roamed him. “Very probably more than you know right now. Well. More than you _think_ you know.”

“You say that as if you’re so sure I’m going to change.”

Her smile was positively gleeful. “Spoilers! Ok then. So right now, you’re new enough to hate any… sort of… intimate… contact?”

She made a point of dusting her fingertips over his arms as she talked, making him writhe uncomfortably under her touch before he considered her question for a moment. “Perhaps… coming from you, it’s not as physically repulsive as when everyone else insists on forcing me into it.”

She giggled merrily, clasping her hands together. “This is fabulous! I do _love_ regeneration. You couldn’t keep those lanky arms away from anyone in your last body.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.” His wife revelled in running her hands over his arms as if the first instance hadn’t been torturous enough, smirking at the muscles tensing underneath. “You told me about this phase; said I’d meet it one day. Of course, I can’t _possibly_ tell you what we were doing at the time, but it would certainly suggest this phase doesn’t last…”

“It’s not a _phase_ ,” he managed, voice packing a lot less vehemence than he’d have liked so it came out as a mumble that was nowhere near persuasive. Granted, it was getting considerably difficult to hold onto his argument when her suggestive comments were currently assaulting his imagination. “Stop it.”

She held up her hands innocently. “I’m not doing a thing, sweetie.”

“If you care about me like you’re always saying you do, then you should respect my wishes and have some self-control.”

She pressed her lips together to contain a snort of laughter. “Believe me, dear, I am. Nothing’s happening, is it?”

“No, but you’re giving me that sort of, predatory look. How I imagine a lioness looks at a gazelle when it’s hungry.”

“Sorry, it’s involuntary… when you’re in that suit-”

“ _River_.”

“Can’t I be nice without you getting suspicious?”

“No, you can’t! People are supposed to hate me! They do hate me, in fact- and rightly so! I’m cantankerous, impatient- frankly, I’m horrible. People don’t like that!”

“Well, I’m not people.”

“Exactly; you’re my wife – really, you should hate me more! I mean, you know me and everything.”

“Exactly. I know you; which means I know that _this_ ,” she gestured at him, “is no more of a façade than that puppyish, bumbling man-child with floppy hair act. I know what you’re doing; you’re trying to push people away by being this grumpy old man who hates everything. But you can’t fool me, sweetie.” She smiled. “You should know that by now.”

He gaped at her. “But… no. You’re wrong. This, this is who I am now. I’m not the same as I was before, it’s not-”

“You see, _this_ is why I wish I hadn’t let you get stuck there.” For the first time in this whirlwind of an evening, he watched her smile fade. “Trenzalore,” she mused quietly. “It must still be fresh for you now. I never understood why you didn’t just call me, even though you said you couldn’t possibly have. Spoilers; I’m assuming you haven’t had that conversation with me yet. But then if you had I’d have dragged you away and you wouldn’t have _this_ body, so… silver linings. Literally.”

“Yeah, well, Trenzalore had nothing to do with you,” he snapped, sounding crabby because he sort of really, _really_ hated that he now knew he didn’t have to have had that millennium without her. Those thousand years in her absence that had specifically turned him into this. He wondered briefly what he’d be if she’d been at his side.

“No.” Her eyes did the thing he told Clara off about, just for a brief second, and he cursed himself for not being able to control his mouth whilst fighting the urge to bang his head off the rotor. “But it’s made you stubborn; which is a bit dangerous, because you were stubborn anyway.”

He scoffed, but it lacked in vehemence. “You can talk!”

“You’re so sure that you’re a completely different man now, then?”

“I am.”

Apparently, removing his wife’s complacency was a task the Doctor was incapable of; a side effect of her knowing him better than he knew himself. God, he’d missed that, and hadn’t even realised. “Tell me, Doctor.” She rested her hip against the console, folding her arms as if she’d already won. “Where’s the best view in the whole Universe?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just tell me,” she insisted patiently.

“Well… I suppose that would have to be just outside the Auria Metathron Galaxy in the 61st Gamma Century.”

“Ah. Isn’t Auria the brightest galaxy in all the known Universe?”

“Yes, it has over fifty thousand star clusters – all colours of the spectrum, that’s why they nickname it the Rainbow Galaxy, and there’s a constant cycle of supernovas and space dust clouds, all whirling around each other every second, and-” River’s victorious smirk made his hands drop back to his sides, silencing his spiel. “Alright, well. That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Cynic.”

“Archaeologist.”

It rolled off his tongue out of instinct, and both their faces split into wide grins.

He sighed softly, shaking his head in faint disbelief. “You don’t see me as different?”

“No.”

“How?”

“Spoilers!”

“Because the only logical explanation I can think of is that you’ve always known this face… alongside Chinny.”

“Spoilers,” River breathed again with ease, examining her manicured fingernails.

“Which means I’ll be seeing you again. And again. And again-”

Her eyes sparkled as they met his. “ _Spoilers_.”

Before, it had been a merciless tease, an irritating emphasis on his lack of knowledge. Now, it felt like a promise.

* * *

 

The Doctor groaned lightly when she enveloped him in a very one-sided hug at the doors. Clara thought she had relationship problems. His wife liked _cuddles_. “Please stop doing that.”

“Never.” She grinned, clasping his chin to press _another_ kiss to his cheek and laughing when he wrinkled his nose in discomfort. “You’ll get used to it, sweetie. Trust me.”

“Spoilers,” he reminded her.

“I think you’re safe with that one.” She winked, and then before he could utter a word of farewell she had spun on her heel and danced out of his sight, her voice ringing out from the abyss of darkness. “Till the next time!”

And oh, was he going to wait up.

 

 

 


	10. Counting down from Zero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor’s heart-to-heart-to-heart with Clara and a nudge from the Tardis leads to him seeing his wife, who’s not yet his wife, for the first time on purpose.  
> Takes place after Flatline (S8, Ep 9) for the Doctor, and after Let's Kill Hitler (S6, Ep8) for River.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! So sorry for the major delay, but here it is: Chapter 10. Other chapters will follow shortly.  
> Hope you enjoy it!

“Boring, boring, really boring… Clom? Seriously? _Clom_?” the Doctor scoffed, eyeing the ceiling of his ship in disdain. “Come on, you’re not even trying here!”

The Tardis hummed around him, tipping enough to the side to make him stagger and mumble an apology. He’d been flicking through the suggestions on the monitor for what felt like hours, images of exotic faraway planets that were supposed to be enticing but were doing nothing for him. He couldn’t even ask Clara; she was at home after their encounter with the Boneless, probably busy lying through her teeth to PE between disastrous dates. Judging by the fact that her last suggestion had taken them to that god-awful Robin Hood, perhaps it was for the best.

Giving up, he flicked the monitor off with a sigh and flopped into the seat, running a hand over his face. He really needed to get a live-in one; this being alone thing really didn’t agree with him.

The beep of the monitor switching itself back on made his hand drop from his face, and he leaned forwards to peer at the unfamiliar location on the screen. It was almost too dark an image to distinguish anything, save a single light that illuminated a hunched-over silhouette in the centre of a seemingly endless room, cradling a book in her hands. Fiddling with the toggle on the side of the scanner, he zoomed in on the figure enough to distinguish a halo of erratic curls which confirmed his suspicions and set his hearts in wild motion.

She was young; young enough not to have replaced the round glasses perched on her nose with contacts, young enough to be studying with almost furious intensity. Young enough to be sitting alone. He guessed that this version of River Song, the one he’d been studying on the screen for an embarrassing amount of time, had yet to acquire a title.

The Doctor sighed, raising an eyebrow at his ship. “It’s _almost_ as if you have an agenda, dear.”

He’d been putting it off, and he knew it. Even the first time River had turned up, months ago now, had been more than enough to rouse unsettling hope, and the second encounter had confirmed it- this was no fluke, no temporary point of flux that would resolve itself.

 _“Spoilers_!”

Other meetings lay ahead of him in the future, dozens of them, probably.

 _“Isn’t that good?”_ Clara had asked, after “politely enquiring” (interrogating) him for half a sodding hour about the current whereabouts of his wife until he’d finally conceded to admit that she’d turned up on his doorstep and swept him away for whiskey and dancing. He’d voiced his concern to her, about River’s words that were of course cryptic because when weren’t they, that alluded to what he supposed could be called a second attempt.

And of course it was good. It was brilliant, wonderful, amazing, impossible, miraculous. But that didn’t stop a sizeable chunk of him wishing that it wasn’t happening.

_“It was painful, Clara. Painful beyond belief.”_

_“What was?”_

_"Everything. My whole life with her. From day one, I knew where she was going, where she’d end up; and there was nothing in all the powers of time and space that I could do to stop it. That still stands. Each day with River Song is a countdown. And worse, now I have no idea when it’ll reach zero. One day it’ll just stop without warning, and I’ll be left mourning her all over again.”_

_“But you thought it reached zero a long time ago. Whatever happens now, isn’t every minute you have with her like… extra? Like a bonus? Plus, remember what I said when she first turned up._ _You shouldn’t know when the last time will be.”_

The River on the monitor sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose as she leafed through another book. A tiny, breathing little shadow alone in the dark. He knew that younger him wasn’t coming; no-one was. It was the story of so many of her nights. Unless…

_“Besides, can’t you use this time to, you know, make amends?”_

He watched River tilt her head back, studying the stars through the glass panes in the ceiling.

_“Well, you always say you have regrets about you and her. So go fix them.”_

He could look at tonight as another number on the countdown. Or he could look at it as one less night that River spent alone.

“Fine. You win,” he muttered gruffly. The Tardis whirred to life sounding almost pleased, and he set the coordinates for Luna University.

* * *

He headed down the sweeping marble steps of the university library, the box of chocolates he’d bought at some wee vintage Earth shop clutched to his chest.

River was just as she had been on the monitor; the tiny lamp next to her his guiding light, the only source of it in the vast maze of books. She didn’t look up until he reached her, glasses slipping down her nose to regard him over the top of them. “Oh. It’s you.”

Not exactly a brilliant greeting, but he decided to take it. “Well observed.” He dropped the box of chocolates unceremoniously on the desk, digging his hands in his pockets.

She was looking up at him with the sort of wariness that only shone through her eyes when young, those that he’d rarely seen in his last body. Memories of the first time he’d seen her through these new eyes of his surfaced, of night terrors and fear and uncertainty regarding everything, regarding _him_. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question, sitting in a library at half three in the morning.”

“I’m studying; extra historiography for my dissertation.” If her tone was just a little hostile, he decided to ignore it. “What’s your excuse?”

There was a chair next to her, which he gladly collapsed into as if it were an old habit. “I visit you all the time.” He knew it was a lie; he’d only been here a handful of times before, mostly with her parents in tow or, on a couple of occasions, post-Manhattan; wearied and alone, in a desperate attempt to cling to her for a little longer before she slipped through his fingertips. Even then he’d kept at a bit of a distance, usually sitting next to her in agreeable silence as she conversed with Amy and Rory or did research for whatever project she happened to be working on; he’d never known quite what to do with a version of his wife who wasn’t his wife, wasn’t his anything, yet.

“Not with this face, you haven’t. And not with chocolates.” She raised an eyebrow, casting a disapproving glance at his feet where they’d propped themselves up on the desk. “Is this some sort of booty-call?”

“I don’t know what that is, but as it’s you I’ll say probably not.”

The smirk on her lips as she reached for the chocolates alone told him the nature of this mysterious term. “Shame.” She plucked a single chocolate from the box, placing it on her tongue gingerly. “I’m watching my figure,” she clarified when he raised his eyebrows at her in disapproval.

He scoffed dramatically. “Don’t be absurd.”

River swallowed, shifting away from him slightly and smoothing her hands over her hips self-consciously. “Well. It may not _appear_ that I do, but…”

“Now, you know that’s not what I meant, Miss Song.” He dug out an orange chocolate, because he knew she loved them even if she didn’t yet, and pulled it from the wrapper. “You are a very busy woman who needs…” He pressed it into her palm, “…To keep her strength up.”

“And you think high-sugar junk food is the way to do that? No wonder you’re always so hyperactive.” She pushed the box over to him. “You should really take a few. You’ll have stick insects making eyes at you if you get any skinnier.”

He did just that, munching his way through half the box as River flicked through book after book on the mountainous pile at her feet, discarding each one to the side with a grunt of frustration. “God, there’s nothing in these books about the Rithean Colony. You’d think _someone_ would have written something,” she muttered, sticking her nose in a thick volume with a battered spine.

“Rithean, as in the first known creatures to inhabit Jupiter? Oh, they’re lovely,” he commented flippantly, throwing another chocolate into his mouth. “They make smashing cakes.”

River’s eyes boggled, and he smirked triumphantly as she threw the book down to lean into him eagerly. “You’ve met them?”

He swivelled in his chair, basking in his own smugness. “Dozens of times. I was very briefly engaged to their Queen, but that’s an incident best forgotten by all parties to be honest-”

“Well – come on, tell me everything you know!”

“ _Everything_? That’s an awful lot; are you sure your little brain can take it?”

“Shut up, time boy. You know you’ve met your match in me.”

“That’s no way to ask for a favour.” The plan was to hold out for a please, but he soon relented under her haughty glare which, like her mother’s, could win any argument outright without even being accompanied by words. “Alright, look. It started with their exposure to the solar flares…” He ripped a blank page from her notebook and prised the pen from her hand, scrawling away in loopy Gallifreyan as he rambled.

Looking up caused him to trail off, seeing the utter confusion on her face. “What’s the matter?”

She nodded to the paper, a bewildered frown creasing her forehead. “What the hell is that?”

“Well, it’s notes! I thought I’d note it down; I know I have a sexy Scottish voice now but I don’t expect you to remember _everything_ I say-”

“But…” She squinted at the piece of paper. “But you’re not- that’s not writing. That’s a bunch of circles.”

“It’s Gallifreyan.”

“Oh.” She frowned, scooping the paper up to stare at it. “Ah, I think I vaguely recognise it, actually…”

“The Silence didn’t teach you it?”

River snorted softly. “Sweetie, they wanted me to kill you, not write you letters.”

He blinked owlishly, mind whirring; it had been doing that a lot of late, where each little piece of information that River gave him twisted or rewrote a fragment of the memory of them locked away, perfectly preserved, in his head. She’d never been short of perfect at writing Gallifreyan. It would have taken several months, at least, for her to learn that sort of ability, even for a Time Lord.

Would take.

He bit down on his lip to keep his grin at bay. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to teach you.”

“I suppose you will.” She handed the paper back to him. “For now, English please.”

“Ah, later. It’s so musty in here.” He wrinkled his nose, and hopped to his feet suddenly. “Let’s get some fresh air.”

For all her grumbles, River followed him easily enough, conceding even to lead the way on his fourth wrong turn in his quest to get outside. When they finally found themselves on the deserted university green the sky, especially simulated to appear as Earth’s, was incredibly authentic; wispy clouds cast veils over the stars.

“Isn’t it beautiful!"

“It’s cloudy,” she remarked flatly.

“Exactly…” He flopped onto the grass – honestly, they’d made it so much like Earth on here that you’d never know it was the moon – and propped his arms behind his head. “All those different shapes, constantly moving, evolving. You could spend hours watching them.”

“ _You_ could,” River retorted, but she was already seated next to him.

“I lived on a cloud once. For roughly a century, in fact.”

She peered at him disbelievingly. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“Spoilers.” The Doctor cleared his throat, nodding at the sky. “Not bad, this, is it? I told you you’d find your way.”

She lay down next to him with a happy sigh, close enough for her curls to tickle his cheek. “I did! Archaeology, I love it. I thought the academic route was best, seeing as I _wasted_ my education on Earth. Mind you, that’s only because it was mind-numbingly simplistic.”

“Only? Not because you spent roughly four days of the week in detention? On a good week.” He smiled wryly at her suspicious frown. “Amy told me everything.”

“Well, what can I say? Putting laxatives in the teacher’s tea easily beat learning the basics of physics. The basics! Please. I was an expert in quantum mechanics by age six.” She smiled wistfully. “It is a bit lonely here without Amy to talk to, I must say. You know, I used to climb through her bedroom window in the middle of the night.”

“I know.”

River grinned. “What else did she tell you?”

“Uh… there was one about a giraffe at the school disco.”

“Ah. I’m particularly proud of that one.”

“Where did you get the giraffe?”

“The zoo, naturally.”

“Of course. Let’s see… the stolen bus story was a favourite of Amy’s. And there were a lot of torture ones, as I recall…that boy you almost drowned in the duck pond?”

“Well. He was asking for it.”

“The girl you hung from the climbing frame by her ponytail?”

“Also asking for it. She picked on Rory’s nose. Nobody picks on my Dad’s nose.”

She stuck her own nose in the air defiantly, and he sent a strict chastising mental note to his hearts to stop bloody fluttering. Saying that, he’d always loved how ridiculously protective she was over her parents, never caring that it was supposed to be the other way around.

He shoved a gentle elbow in her ribs. “You’ll see them again soon.”

River nodded earnestly. “They’ve been to visit me – well, you know that, you brought them – but as soon as I have my doctorate I’m going to find them. I have their address. Do you think they’d be ok with me staying with them? Just for a little while.”

Oh no. He sucked in a steady breath, trying to still his suddenly hammering pulses. “When do you get your doctorate?”

“This summer. About four months to go.” She crossed her fingers with a light chuckle.

_“They made you a doctor today, did they? Doctor River Song… how clever you are!”_

Yet another dream she’d never live out. Spending her nights in a cell for a crime she didn’t commit instead of the house of her parents, catching up on too much lost time. He wanted to throw himself at the sun. “Uh…”

“Oh, of course. Spoilers. I just… I don’t know. I’m still not entirely sure how this all works. If they think of _me_ as their daughter, you know.”

The catch in her voice made his hearts stutter enough to lift him from his inner turmoil. “They do, River.” They’d tried. They really had; he’d watched them, watched them struggle with it as he bit back his own crushing guilt at having caused them such turmoil. But they’d loved River Song, even if it was never quite the same as the way they’d loved that little baby girl, or as their love for wild, irresponsible Mels. It had never been expected of them, even by River herself; but, as she’d confided when almost a Professor to his younger face, to be loved, no matter what the nature, was a precious thing to her after the isolation of her first childhood. That knowledge was enough to soothe him, and he’d let his Ponds be his Ponds in the wonderfully dysfunctional way they knew how.

“That’s good to know,” she smiled, relieved, and he let his eyes dart between what stars they could distinguish to conceal the distress he knew would be swimming in them because-

_“When did they take you?”_

_“The day I became a doctor. Straight from the University.”_

“I know you’re not supposed to tell me, but will I see them again soon?”

He nodded, swallowing. “Yes, you will.” On their wedding day. The day she’d rise out of the lake in the astronaut suit and-

The lake.

The _lake_!

“Doctor? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I’m _stupid_ …”

“Doctor-?”

“Uh… sorry, I’ve just remembered, there’s – there’s somewhere I have to be.” Pressing a light kiss to her cheek that he only had the courage to leave there because his mind was too fogged with this new purpose to really think it through, he leapt to his feet.

River scrambled up on her elbows. “Where are you going?”

“Spoilers!” he managed, grumbling under his breath. Stupid, stupid, stupid man. He’d never even given it a thought before today.

“I hate it when you say that! Mail me the notes on the Rithean Colony!”

He barely registered her voice, only able to picture her tear-streaked, panic-stricken face on the beach. The shocking pain of the electric jolts from the suit that had killed the Teselecta, of her own gunfire in her back. Trapped at the bottom of Silencio Lake, under control of the Silence; the Silence who had just used her for her only purpose. Who had no reason to keep her alive.

Somebody had to pull her out of that lake.


	11. Always and Completely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello sweeties!
> 
> Note for this chapter: If you search images for The Impossible Astronaut, some eagle-eyed Who viewers have spotted that as the Doctor's sort-of murder plays out, a shadowy figure can be seen behind Amy, Rory and River on the Plain of Sighs…
> 
> That's something I wasn't actually aware of until AFTER I'd started writing this, but I thought it was interesting. And it happens to be very relevant here…
> 
> Thank you all endlessly for the support and reviews. I truly love you all and your feedback makes my day. It's also put enough pressure on me to post two chapters in one week… I hope that makes up for the long break.
> 
> Enjoy! X

* * *

_"_ _We have no need for her now. Let her drown."_

River heard the words as if in a dream, not registering who they came from, what they meant.

She felt heavy. It took all of her strength to open her eyes, but when she did, what she saw made her sick with dread.

She was underwater.

She remembered everything, in such a rush that the force of it was almost enough to knock her unconscious. Shooting him. Watching him fall. The horror on the faces of her parents, of herself. His gentle promises that she'd never recall this. Shooting him again and again and again until he died at her feet, not able to do anything else.

She couldn't breathe.

She had killed him. She had killed her Doctor.

Her visor was opening. Letting water in. She tried to move, but the suit was too heavy.

It was just as well. She deserved to die here.

She closed her eyes, feeling the water hit her skin.

Just as her lungs began to burn for breath, she felt herself move. At first, she thought it was instinct taking over, but then she looked down and saw the pair of arms around her, lifting her up, carrying her to the surface.

She faded.

* * *

He had to wait until the Plain of Sighs was deserted, watch passively with clenched fists from a safe distance as it all played out, as tempting as running into his Ponds again may have been. More importantly, he had to avoid himself; to wait until the Tardis back at the diner and the Teselecta, too engulfed by flames on the little boat for any observer to notice, had teleported safely back to Calisto B. He'd been in the same bloody lake as her and he'd _left_ , not even sparing this a thought.

In fairness, not that any of this was fair, he _had_ been thinking about her back then. He was thinking about her for the best part of three hundred years, even though – a realisation which was only just dawning on him now – he'd never truly, inside-out known her. The River he thought of was fearless. Nothing bad happened to her, and if it did, she'd flirt or shoot or think her way out of it. The River he'd gone to after the Pyramids was one who could do anything, who needed no-one, who was always not just alright but mad and impossible and sexy and his _wife_ , his actual proper wife (he'd never doubted). He'd been positively giddy about that; massively hyper as his last face had a tendency to become.

And besides, every bride deserved a wedding night. And a honeymoon to follow. He'd made sure she got that, spoiling her like nobody's business, keeping her to himself for weeks that stretched into months. She'd been a few years into prison at the time and made it very clear that none of this was new to her, but he'd never cared. She was his River. His River who was perfectly amazing at making the Universe, him included, believe that she was ok. The problem with that was that no-one, him included again, had never felt the need to check. He'd been too wrapped up in her glory to even think about the times when she'd been vulnerable, too eager to go to his wife who stole expensive jewellery and kissed the guards at Stormcage and teased him mercilessly to spare a thought for his wife at the bottom of the lake. Dying.

The moon barely gave enough light to see the beach, let alone distinguish anything underwater, but he thanked the lost gods of Gallifrey for his respiratory bypass system. Eight excruciatingly frustrating minutes of wading blindly crawled by until his hands came into contact with something solid.

The green-tinged light of the sonic lit up the astronaut suit, stuck upright on the lake's bed, River frozen, ashen-skinned, inside it; eyes tightly shut in hollow sockets. The visor was open; he tried not to think that if she'd been human he'd have been too late, instead diving down to her feet to pluck them, one by one, from the thick mud at the bottom of the lake. Even when free the suit was far too heavy to let her float, and even for him it took a considerable amount of strength to pull her to the surface. How she'd broken out of it as a young girl was, frankly, remarkable – not that he'd ever expected her to be anything less.

Arms locked around her waist, he dragged her onto the sand, not breathing again until she was safely out of the water and her own respiratory bypass had given way to normal breaths.

The Doctor knelt beside her, hands running frantically over the spacesuit. There would have been no way to get it off her without tools, had it not been for the holes peppered in the back. Bullet holes. Of course. She'd been shooting her younger self to give her the chance of escape. He dug his fingers in the tears, ripping it open until it blessedly came away from her.

He fell back into the sand, running a hand over his face. There was barely an inch of her left unblemished; bruises from being forced into the suit, grazes where the wires had sliced into her skin, and her hand… god, her hand. He daren't have touched it, for fear that it would fall away from her altogether; the same power that had shot at him had burned the skin off her palm. Tearing a strip from the bottom of the plain nightdress they'd put her in, he bandaged it haphazardly around her hand to stem the bleeding, his own trembling violently.

River began to stir in his arms, and he snapped out of autopilot. All this was because of him. What the hell was he going to say to her?

* * *

She couldn't remember falling unconscious, but when she awoke the feel of cold sand against her almost-bare skin startled her so much that she sprung up in alarm, panting for breath as tears burned her salty eyes. The astronaut suit was next to her, ripped to near shreds. The relief of being free made choking sobs rise in her throat, but panic at a sudden unfamiliar touch soon took over.

River whirled around with a yelp, stopping when she noticed the strip of cloth tied around her hand. Why would her wounds be dressed? Who cared enough? No-one left alive. Whoever it was still touched her, the pressure of their heavy hands enough to send her pulse into a panicked rapid-fire motion. The last people to touch her had wired a gun to her arm and forced her to kill the man she loved.

She recoiled away from her assailant with a scream, scrambling through the sand on her useful hand and knees, but she was far too weak to limp more than a foot without collapsing. Then she was being dragged back, and used the last of her strength to lash out blindly, kicking and screaming until someone called her name.

"River!"  
She stopped dead, not daring even to glance behind her. She could be hallucinating, even dead; if not, this was simply another cheap and horrible trick designed to break her, and she wasn't going to give in.

"Get off me!" she screamed, flailing when she attempted to jump to her feet and ending up face-first in the sand. Cheeks burning as the tears and glassy grains ground into the cuts there, she pushed vehemently at the hands around her waist.

"River, it's me!"

"No."

"River-"

"NO! Leave me alone, please, just leave me alone, I can't, I don't want to do this anymore, please…"

All hope having left her as she'd watched the Doctor's life leave him, she curled up in a little ball on the Plain of Sighs and wailed until she ached.

When her attacker hauled her upright this time, she let them. They could kill her for all she cared. Torture her. What good was her life now? She was born for one thing, and it was done-

"River, please. Look at me. Just look."

 _River_. _They_ never called her that- always Melody Pond, the woman who kills the Doctor. River was something different altogether. River was… River was the woman who loved the Doctor. Who had a life beyond Silence.

That voice. She recognised it enough to know that it shouldn't exist.

She let herself glance up through eyes that were almost swollen shut and there he was; dripping icy water and expression noticeably fraught even in the darkness, but unmistakable. The face who'd taught her Gallifreyan and brought her sunflowers; the arms holding her up that she'd fallen into after Berlin.

"Hello," he whispered, sounding nervous of all things. River stared at him dumbly, ceaseless tears cascading down her face. She flinched when he brushed some sand from her cheek with his thumb, and he drew it away apologetically. "Don't worry. You're safe now."

"What, how…" She curled her good hand around his jacket tightly, checking he wasn't an illusion. When the material pressed against the grazes on her good palm and made it sting, she drew it away with a vehement shake of her head. "You came after, after… how can you be here, you can't- this doesn't make sense!"

Fresh tears were dripping onto the sand; her hands matted in her hair as she ran her hands through it, feeling her lungs constrict.

"River!" the Doctor said softly, holding her head up with his hands in what then truly felt like the most comforting gesture she had ever received. "River, it's ok. It's ok. Everything's alright, I promise. Trust me. Just breathe."

She couldn't. "I- I- I shot you- you- you died-"

"No, River," he told her, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. "I'm here. Look! I'm fine."

She shook her head violently. "No… no, you don't understand… I killed you-!"

"You didn't," he said sincerely, tucking her curls behind her ears. "Remember the alternate Universe, River? This happened twice- you refused to kill me, and ripped all of time and space apart! The pyramids, remember?"

She frowned through her tears, as it started to float back to her. It seemed far too fuzzy, too bizarre to be reality. "No, that- that wasn't real-"

"It was. Well, technically now it's a Universe that never existed, but what happened within it still stands. Remember what I whispered in your ear? You shot the Teselecta, River. You didn't kill me: I'm proof of that. We found a way around it, you and me. We changed the future." He cupped her chin in his hand, pressing a kiss to the bridge of her nose because he couldn't quite help himself. "You broke a fixed point in time, you bloody amazing woman."

"I…" She trailed off uselessly, sniffing back tears. "I don't understand, I- I remember it both ways, I remember…"

"It's very… timey-wimey. Believe me, you'll get used to it. All you need to know now is that everything's ok. The Silence is done with you; they aren't going to hurt you anymore, I swear."

"Are…" She swallowed, looking into his eyes imploringly, heart still thumping double time. "Are we ok?"

"Of course we are." He smiled brilliantly for her sake, dismissing the painful churning of his insides at the sticky trail of blood seeping through the bandage that she'd left on the sand. "We got married! Can you remember?"

She nodded, a weak laugh escaping her lips despite everything. "Yes."

"There, you see? Now, stop crying. I will not have you crying on our wedding day."

She buried her face in his shirt, and he cradled her, sitting with her in his arms for minutes on the cool sand. "I'm sorry," she murmured thickly. "I'm so sorry…"

"Hush," he said gently, smoothing her hair down. "You don't ever have to apologise to me. Can you stand up?"

"I don't think so," she said weakly. "Why?"

"Because I'm taking you home," he told her.

"Home?"

"The Tardis," he clarified, slipping his hands under her arms. "Where I can look after you."

She didn't argue, her muted sobbing the only thing to disturb the eerie silence on the Plain of Sighs as he scooped her up and traipsed through the sand, heading back to the warmth of his ship with his broken wife in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Up next: A first for the Twelfth Doctor...


	12. Over the Threshold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters in three days! You're all worth it. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. I forgot how much I loved writing this story; thank you for reminding me.

He pushed the Tardis door open with his foot, ignoring the cruel irony of him carrying his new wife over the threshold when she was shaking and choking on incessant sobs.

Her name tumbled from his lips as he set her clumsily on the console room seat in a frantic attempt to calm her, but she seemed too lost to register anything beyond the haze inside her own head. “Oh god, oh god,” she stuttered, pulling away from him and burying her head deep in her hands. “I thought I’d killed you… I thought I’d erased everything, I… I thought I’d never see _this_ you again! I didn’t think you’d even – exist!”

He sat at her feet, silently marvelling at her. All the times she’d referred to their wedding day her voice had been packed with cheek and humour, usually accompanied by a wink or suggestive comment. She’d never seemed upset about it, or bitter or angry; never even alluding to ever feeling like this. He’d simply admired her stoic nature, wondering at how she could just move on from a tortured childhood, a tortured _life_. Now he despised himself for being so horribly naïve.

“I thought it was over, I – I thought I’d escaped them, I thought they were done with me, and – they could do it again, they’re never going to leave me alone-!”

“River, it’s _fine_ ,” he insisted. “I’ve told you, they’re gone. They think you killed me. It’s over now.”

“It’s not over!” she cried. “It’s my whole life, Doctor! I’m just a weapon! All I am is what- what _they_ conditioned me to be!”

“No, you’re not. You are so much more than that. And in time, you’ll realise it for yourself.”

Her head shook until they were both dizzy from it, a wail wrenching out of her and twisting in his hearts. “I’m a monster.”

He gripped her chin a little rougher than he should have, tilting her face up to his. “You are _not_ a monster. _Don’t_ say that. Don’t even think it. You tore the Universe in two to stop yourself becoming what they wanted you to be – you couldn’t have done any more.”

“I… I just didn’t know what else to do! _I_ didn’t know that you’d be alright, and I couldn’t just… stand there, and let that happen.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to disappear, and for some reason I had a mind to do it alone. It was incredibly selfish of me not to tell you on the beach.”

“No, I – I understand.”

His hands fell off her with a sigh, eyes pressing shut as a now common sensation of overwhelming guilt took over. “River. I hate that you just understand.” He climbed to his feet, dropping into the space on the seat next to her. She seemed to be calming, blessedly, and he thanked the Tardis for the pacifying whispery hum that he could hear in his own head, that he knew would be far louder in River’s. “I’ve done terrible things; yet you never question me. Why is that?”

“Because so have I. And you never seem to expect me to be something I’m not. The Silence wanted me to be a psycho murderer. Amy and Rory want me to be a perfect baby girl, or at least a good daughter…” She stopped, throwing him a grateful smile when he squeezed her good hand. “It’s alright. But apparently, you’re the only person in the Universe who… doesn’t see me as a disappointment.”

“That’s not true, River. Your parents love you, and they’re so proud of you. You _are_ perfect to them, for no other reason than because you’re theirs. But for the record, you’ve never disappointed me. You couldn’t.”

Her eyes were almost overtaking her face; he could see the tiny flecks of hazel, like gold dust, in her irises. She was so close to him. When had she got there? He gazed back at her, trying to determine what it was she wanted, and as she inched closer his body swayed involuntarily towards her a fraction of a second before his mind clicked into place with a dull thud.

His instinctive sway – a reaction to her that apparently endured through time and bodies – had apparently given River enough courage to move close enough that he was left dizzy. Her lips brushed his in the softest of gestures, barely touching, as if asking for permission. She angled her head until the sensation of her eyelashes tickling his cheek made his heartbeats soar into a pulsating orchestra. A flurry of thoughts spared to untreated injuries and shared firsts and inexperience and _a thousand years, a thousand years without this_ were soon dispelled by some lost force which propelled him forwards to close what very little distance remained between them, pushing his lips back against hers just enough for them to settle in a soothingly unhurried rhythm.

The last time they’d done this, she’d been a ghost and he’d had different lips. The time between the two instances made him ache, but that wasn’t what was different about it. It wasn’t a kiss to save each other, or the Universe; it wasn’t a prelude to anything, a hello or a goodbye. It was comfort, being drawn willingly from him to her, a way of cradling her bruised mind and chasing away the tortured thoughts that lingered there.

Her mouth opened against his with a heavy sigh and he shivered, cupping the back of her head to let her waterlogged curls tangle around his fingers. The Tardis was gracious or cheeky enough to dim the lights for them, and he would have smirked at the implication had there not been a growing awareness niggling at the side of his tumbling incoherent thoughts of salty moisture gathering on her cheeks.

After minutes that seemed to have more power to slow down time than their last kiss from her perspective had had to restart it, he pulled back just enough to break their contact, smiling at the way her nose rubbed against his in an endearingly innocent gesture of affection almost out of place with certain memories. Studying her from this distance required going slightly cross-eyed, but it was worth it; he opened his eyes just soon enough to catch her, still with tightly closed eyes and parted lips, a beautiful flush along her cheeks.

The hand wound in her hair dropped to her shoulder. “We need to fix that hand of yours.”

Her shoulders sagged a little with the silent sigh that left her. She let her head droop forwards to press her forehead against his, letting her tired eyes close as her maimed hand sat limply between them.

He let her stay there for a minute, seeing the ashen tint to her skin and the little creases under her eyes and thinking that she was probably exhausted enough to fall asleep right there against him. He would have let her, too, but the sight of that hand could have pulled his hearts from his chest. “River,” he whispered gently, his hand draping around the back of her neck to help her lift her sleepy head.

The sight of her hand quickly eradicated any warm fuzziness that had manifested with the kiss. He wasn’t even sure where to start on it, and the worry lines etched around the corners of River’s eyes suddenly made a stupidly naïve idea seem perfectly logical. “Do you want me to heal this?”

She gasped, looking genuinely horrified. “You can’t waste your regeneration energy like that! Don’t be so sentimental!”

He chuckled. Some things really never, ever changed. “Says the woman who gave me all of hers.”

“No. Please don’t.”

“Ok. Bandage it is.” He hopped to his feet, rambling like an idiot as he retrieved the medical kit from one of the shelves upstairs. “I have some ointment that heals burns within a few days, it’s good stuff from the 40th century. It won’t scar, so don’t worry about that, just keep it dry and covered for a bit…” He flopped back into the seat, offering her his free hand. “Hold it out to me.”

The words made her smile, and it took him a few moments as he cleaned and dressed the wound carefully to realise why. She’d killed him with one hand and married him with the other, all within the same minute; and now she sat with a clenched jaw and her gaze fixed on him as a distraction from her hand, not even uttering a single sound of pain. “Brave,” he murmured, settling for the single word rather than spin his thoughts into a poetic speech that would easily have endured for hours.

“I’m in love with you.”

The Doctor’s fingers stilled, her half-bandaged hand suddenly swimming in his vision. River’s words pinged around his head, swirling in the silence; by the time he found strength enough to meet her gaze, she looked so terrified that he would have laughed if he hadn’t felt so much like crying.

“I didn’t want to be,” she blurted out, biting her bottom lip to stop it trembling. “I know it’s ridiculous. It must barely mean anything to someone who’s lived as long as you have.”

He managed a strained smile, tying the bandage off in a neat little bow with inexplicably shaking fingers. “People actually tend to hate me.”

“Shut up,” she snorted. “That’s not true.” She scratched at a graze on her knee, eyebrows pinching together. “I didn’t really realise it properly until I woke up under the water. And by then I thought it was too late to ever tell you.”

“But you did tell me; with so much more than words. You put all of time on pause.”

“But I _killed_ you.”

“No, no you didn’t. Hello!”

River puffed out her cheeks. “Sorry. This is so confusing to get my head around, two versions of reality in my head, I keep forgetting that they were both real…”

“That’s because you’re new to it. It’ll pass.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I… thought you should know.”

“I knew.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Of course; wrong order…”

“It’s still… appreciated.” He winced, cursing himself for sounding as if he were thanking a distant relative for a Christmas card, and searched for the right words with which to ease the fraught lines in her forehead. Still, anything had to be better than _that's not funny, River_ , which he assumed - and, selfishly, hoped - was something that she didn't currently remember. “It means more than you know, River. On some days, it means everything.”

“It’s just, with everything you’ve done for me… coming to my graduation, and bringing me-”

He clamped a hand over her mouth gently. “Spoilers.”

“Oh.” She wrung her hands, a frown creasing her brow. “So you haven’t done that yet. What about –”

“Best not to have this conversation,” he said quickly, offering her an apologetic smile. “And when you run into my last face, you have to be especially careful, because he won’t have done any of this.”

A tiny apprehensive, hugely un-River-like smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “So you’ve got memories of all these dates with me that I haven’t been on yet?”

Dates sounded so trivial, so _human_. He supposed that was what they’d been, but the word couldn’t really convey the wonder of those spectacular evenings; a “date” was far more boring than ice skating on a frozen river along to a Stevie Wonder seranade, space walking in an asteroid belt, dancing in a ballroom suspended in the clouds with a glass floor. What he’d lacked when younger, he’d made up for with extravagance. He was making up for the rest now.

“Yes. And I apologise in advance for a sizeable few.”

She laughed lightly, but there was something lying unresolved in her eyes. “So our… our… what happened on top of that pyramid, that’s a distant memory for you?” He nodded; not that it was distant. The memory hadn’t faded at the edges like an old photograph, as many had done; it remained vivid and loud in his head, and he’d never worked out whether it was the nature of the abandoned timeline that made it stick or just that he’d never allowed himself to get used to the memory of marrying _River_.

“And… me killing you, you remember all of that too?”

“I remember being inside the Teselecta as you shot it,” he corrected her softly. “Safe.”

A tormented sigh tore its way from her throat. “You were so _nice_ about it, on the beach. You said you forgave me.”

“Because it wasn’t your fault, River. You have to know that. Just because you can’t stop terrible things from happening, it doesn’t make them your fault.” He hoped sincerely that she would believe him now more than he’d believed her every time she had spoken the exact same words to him. “And besides, you _did_ stop it. You ripped apart the whole Universe to save me.”

“But for what? I didn’t save you; you saved yourself. Ripping the Universe apart achieved nothing in the end, it was just insane, and… stupid.”

He groaned inwardly, wincing as he heard the shout of his own previous voice in his memory; far too impatient, too angry. Too much trying to push her away for reasons he was fully aware of back then but was making a valiant last effort to ignore. “I didn’t mean what I said. I just didn’t know what to do with that much love. And frankly, I was a massive idiot.”

“And now?”

“A slightly smaller idiot. Sometimes. On good days.” He waited to see her smile, tucking in her bandage at the edges. “This won’t take long to heal.”

“Thank you.”

He grimaced. “Don’t. Don’t thank me. I’m the reason you were in that lake.”

“Thank you,” she insisted. “For coming to get me.”

“I don’t mind saving you every now and then. You’ve saved me more times than I can count. Well, you will.” He smiled wanly. “It’s ok to need saving, River. It’s about time someone told you that.”

She’d gained enough strength to be led upstairs, and he didn’t need to be told to stay with her once she was tucked safely in the warmth of their bed. The Tardis sang to her in her own sweet way, the walls humming gently until her child was lulled into sleep.

* * *

 

Her memory of that fateful abandoned timeline returned to her in fragments over the next few days. He’d be there, always, to receive – depending on which part she happened to remember – the slap from her good hand that he knew he deserved, or the tight hug that he knew he didn’t, but accepted all the same. “So, it was to restart time?”

“Yeah.”

“But… we just had to _touch_.” She grinned shyly. “So, you didn’t _have_ to kiss me…”

“Are you complaining?”

She often wondered things, asking him questions that only a very young River would ever feel the need to discover the answers to.

“All the times I’ve seen you - _this_ you, you knew we were married?”

He nodded. “Well, obviously this me has always been your husband.”

“And you think of yourself as that? It’s just that last night, I was starting to remember it all properly… and I was just thinking about it all. It was an alternate Universe, you were in the Teselecta…”

“It wouldn’t have been us if it had been conventional.”

“That’s true.”

“For what it’s worth, I believe it counts. Your parents believed – believe – it counts. In fact, I think it takes Amy a considerable amount of wine to get over the concept of me being her son-in-law. And if you do too, then that’s all we ever need for it to be valid.”

“So… I’m your wife?”

“You’re my wife.”

And then they’d make tea and talk about stars and forget that anyone or anything else had ever existed.

 

It wasn’t long before she started to think about her future; something easy to forget about floating in the vortex. They sat on the seat in the console room, watching the dance of the Tardis lights and River setting down her umpteenth cup of tea to turn to him.

“The whole Universe thinks I murdered you… will I have to go into hiding? Or do they assume I’m dead too?”

“No, they’ll start a search for you when they go to recover the astronaut suit; assuming you broke out of it yourself.” His hand slipped from its place around her shoulders to rub at the bridge of his nose. “River, I’m sorry. This is a spoiler, but I don’t care. They’re going to put you in prison. The trial is quick, and then…”

“Prison?”

The fear in her voice made his gaze drop to the floor in shame. “Have you heard of Stormcage?” She shook her head. “It’s the biggest prison in the Universe."

“That’s where I’m going to end up?” she asked, voice tiny.

He nodded sombrely. “You’ll be there in the 52nd century.”

“Well.” She laughed shakily, running her scarred hand through her hair. “I’m used to cells. I spent quite a few nights in them in Leadworth.”

“You don’t have to pretend you’re ok with this. I’d be angry. I _am_. It’s not fair, and you deserve so much more.”

“Don’t,” she murmured softly. Her hand found its way to his, a soft weight on his wrist. “If… if that’s what I have to do, to keep you safe, then that’s ok. It’s ok.” Her laugh made a shiver course through him. “I’ve lived in worse places than prison.”

“Yes, and you’ll be safe there. It’s the only place where no-one will be able to get to you; not even the Silence,” he added softly.

Her pale eyes bore into him for a moment before a pitifully weak resigned smile flickered across her face. “Not you.”

He snorted, but his voice was soft. “Of course _me_. Come on. They can’t keep me out of anywhere.”

“Unless they make the locks out of wood?”

“Hey. Don’t knock the sonic.”

“So I’ll… I mean, I’m still going to see you?”

“You most definitely are. In fact, you’ll never get rid of me. You’ll be begging for some peace and quiet in a few months.”

She managed a weak laugh, twining her fingers through his. “And you’ll take me away from there?”

“I will. But you don’t need me to whisk you away; you can do that yourself.” He smiled, kissing her brow lightly to melt the frown he found there. “There are no walls that can contain River Song.”

She didn’t look entirely convinced; he knew she’d test him on the subject next time she saw him, as he’d already lived it. But it didn’t hurt to tell her twice.

 

She spent her last few days of freedom with him; recovering, drinking tea and talking into the early hours. She didn’t try to kiss him again, although when she was awake she seemed barely capable of letting go of his hand or clutching at his sleeve for more than a few minutes.

Typically for River, she took as much control over the situation as she could. “I don’t want to spend weeks on the run. I’ve been on the run my whole life. If I know I’ll end up there, I’d rather just go. Besides, if I did try to avoid them… there’s a chance that they might not be the first ones to find me.”

He nodded, sighing softly. “Stormcage isn’t all that bad, you know. You have books and a wardrobe that’s bigger on the inside – you’re welcome – hot water… well, you don’t at first, but I’ll come along in a few weeks and fiddle with the taps for about seven hours before you push me out of the way and do it yourself. Your bed’s actually quite cosy…”

“How would you know that?”

“Uh, you told me.” He rolled his eyes at her knowing smirk. “Fine: _spoilers_. The food’s rubbish, but you’ll hardly ever eat it.”

“Ooh, sweetie, are you going to wine and dine me?”

“Me, several – _several_ – other admirers from across the galaxy. But their restaurants are never as good as mine. And you don’t fancy any of them. You only go for the free food.”

She smirked. “I’m sure that’s what I told you.”

“It is. And it’s what I’ll continue to blindly believe.”

He had the privilege of listening to her laugh for a few moments, lyrical as the rest of her, before a little of the light he’d been so carefully crafting over the last few days left her eyes. “Do you know where they caught me?”

He nodded reluctantly. “Yes.”

“Then drop me off there. As close as you can without them seeing the Tardis.”

“River…” One look from her was enough to swallow down any protests, and he could only nod again. “Ok.”

* * *

She was intent, as always, on dressing for the occasion.

“Whose dress is this?”

His gaze was drawn to the stairs to find River holding out a very familiar garment that had been preserved in his wardrobe for centuries: that olive-green dress she’d worn on more than half of the occasions he’d seen her. The one that, she’d insisted when he’d teased her about it, was her absolute favourite.

He offered her a watery smile. “Guess.”

River grinned happily, clutching it to her chest. “This one. Definitely.”

She hugged him tightly enough to make him wonder if regeneration could be brought about in such a way, but he had no intention of stopping her. Besides, it was a convenient way to hide his face, afraid that she was more than perceptive enough to read what was in store for her from his expression. Holding her gave him just enough strength to plaster on a smile, and he realised that with each and every one of these meetings his sympathy for her was growing to the point that it was almost too consuming to bear; cementing his vows to keep chasing her, keep making things right and gluing back together what he’d broken in the past.

He watched her leave, head held high and a cocky sway to her hips that only River Song could manage when minutes away from having newly-found freedom robbed from her. She got to the end of the street before the shouts started. The soldiers soon closed in, shoving her against the wall and clapping her in handcuffs. The Doctor slammed the Tardis door shut before she could look back, swallowing down tears and whispering an apology to the emptiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the basis for a few more chapter up my sleeve, but I'd like to keep this going for as long as I can!  
> So, because I love all of you, if you have any suggestions or wishes for what you want to see River and Twelve do, drop me a message! Your ideas are welcome!  
> B x


	13. Brighter than Sunflowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOUR chapters in FOUR days! Phew! This will probably be it for a little while, given that I really do quite badly need to sleep and resume my mundane everyday life. I hope you enjoy this.
> 
> As for where this is for the Doctor and River respectively, I’ll let you read the chapter and guess for yourselves…

“Nice heels.”

He looked up with a frown at Clara’s remark, following her gaze until he found the source of her amused grin. River had changed out of the crimson pair of shoes currently sitting atop the controls at the last minute in favour of khaki boots (“Better to kick with.” “Who are you planning on kicking?” “I haven’t decided yet – be good.”) before her arrest, and he hadn’t bothered to put them back in the wardrobe.

“They’re not mine.”

“I guessed that. Well, I hoped…”

He had yet to visit River in prison with this face as he’d planned to after Lake Silencio, safe in the knowledge that his younger self was looking after her; filling her first nights with trips to the stars. Random overnight forests had been enough to keep him occupied but he could feel a familiar dull and constant ache settling over his soul; he was _missing_ her.

“You seem… different.”

Clara’s voice was startling enough for him to realise he’d been lost in some reverie, unfocussed gaze hovering on the red stilettos. “Do I? No I don’t,” he dismissed gruffly, flicking a few levers on the controls that in reality achieved nothing whatsoever.

“You keep smiling for no reason. I’d almost say you were in love…” She grinned, dancing around the console to greet him. “But to be honest, you’re not a young man anymore!”

He rolled his eyes. “If you’re going to mock me, at least come up with your own lines. But while we’re on the subject…”

Her smirk never seemed to wear off. “ _You_ want girl advice? I’m not sure you’re old enough yet. But you can come and sit in on my Year 9 health ed. class if you think it’ll help.”

He scowled at her through the rotor. “Shut up. The thing is, you say I’m different, which is complete rubbish, but anyway; _she’s_ different too. Around me – this me.” He circled his face with his finger.

“Maybe you’re just seeing another side to her that she was afraid to show in front of your young face. She might feel more like she can be herself around this you, because she knows you know her better and that she doesn’t have to try so hard to impress you.”

The Doctor smiled faintly. “Do you want that raise yet, teach?”

“I told you, you’re one of my hobbies. Or chores, depending on the day. Are you going to see her again?”

“I’m going to see her now, actually.”

“Oh. Are you sure you want me here?”

“No. That’s why you’re going home. Off you pop.”

“I’m so lucky you’re my best friend.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you soon. Say hi to PE for me.”

“Oh… yeah.” Clara pulled a face, halting in the middle of the console room.

“What? You’re all eyes.”

A strange groaning sort of noise came from her. “It’s just that – I just promised I’d explain everything to him. You know, this; me and you. That’s going to be a fun conversation… I think I’ll do it over the phone, actually.”

“Ah, so he never has to see you again afterwards when he decides you’re out of your mind. Wise.”

“We work at the same school, Doctor, he’ll have to see me.” She bit down on her lip. “Do you think that’ll happen? That he won’t want to see me, I mean?”

“Well, he knows you travel through time and space in a blue box with a handsome and compelling stranger, and he’s still around. He’s clearly either besotted or some degree of insane – same difference – so you should be fine.”

“Yeah. Oh, god.” She cringed, taking a step away from the door. “You know what? I’d _love_ to get to know River better…”

“Ha, nice try. Although you’d probably get along famously, as long as you didn’t sass each other into oblivion… which would be a very real danger. Go and talk to your boyfriend.”

“What do I _say_?” she whinged.

He shrugged, steering her back to the doors by her shoulders. “I don’t know. Say something nice?”

“Oh, that’s great, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Break a leg. Bye-bye.”

 

* * *

 

 

He poured an ornate amount of detail into a whole portfolio on the Rithean Colony, as promised. He’d been gone a week when he returned to Luna, the notes clutched in his hand. River scolded him for running off, and for not bringing her any chocolates, but the portfolio was deemed a suitable enough peace offering for her to accept his suggestion that seeing as she was currently sitting watching – ogling – the male tennis team, a better use of her time may have been to learn the basics of Gallifreyan writing.

“I don’t know, sweetie.” She tapped her fingers on the grass, twisting her mouth to the side both to look pensive and hide her smirk. “Muscly men in shorts, or, well, _you_ … I just don’t know. Give me a moment to think about it while I watch this next game.”

She could tease all she liked. She chose him.

They sat in the secluded corner of the library that was fast becoming theirs, safe from all but a couple of her many admirers that would stroll past with a wink or suggestive comment and make him scoot closer to her with his best menacing glare. She picked up his language about as quickly as he’d expected her to, as a child of the Tardis who’d earned a three-year degree within five months; enough for them to have several tea breaks to discuss the finer points of the civilisations she was studying for her doctorate. When teaching resumed the fifth time around, she snuggled close to him and draped her legs over his without express permission, where they stayed for the remainder of the evening.

It was the early hours of the next morning before he finally left her, sleeping on one of the sofas in the library on a wad of notes in Circular Gallifreyan as a pillow. He left her a simple message in their now shared language, one she’d be able to understand.

And it was happening again because god, she was beautiful and clever and funny and he didn’t even care that he wore a grin like a teenage idiot all the way back to the Tardis because he was bloody besotted with her.

He left a translation, just in case.

_~ See you around! x ~_

He barely paused for breath before his next visit to her; only to buy the biggest bunch of flowers he could find.

 

* * *

 

 

Celebrations of the students’ achievements were an elaborate affair at the Luna University. And the doctoral graduation ceremony was no exception.

River, honestly, just wanted to get it over with. They called her name – not her real one, of course, but the name that she still didn’t really feel she deserved sometimes. She felt her cheeks burn as they started; the polite claps of strangers, kind enough not to let her walk up there in horrific silence but still too preoccupied by the achievements of their own loved ones to make it sound anything other than uncaringly false.

She didn’t care. She told herself that as she collected the crisp degree with hands that trembled only slightly, bowing to the faceless crowd because even unloved and utterly alone out here, she could still be graceful.

The crowd ebbed away once the ceremony ended, her fellow graduates being swept away in a warm, humming crowd of proud relatives. She was left in the middle of the deserted hall clutching her certificate, not seeing the point in returning to an empty dorm where the sounds of other people playing happily families would seep through the walls.

She hadn’t expected anyone to come for her, expressly because she’d designed it that way. Her parents had been brought along by a bouncy young Doctor; she guessed all three were still wearing Berlin fresh in their memories, largely because she’d kept catching each of them at different points during the day staring at her as if afraid she’d break. Amy filled the air reminiscing about the reckless days of Amelia and Mels, and whenever he could get a word in edgeways Rory asked if she was alright, if she’d recovered well after Berlin, if the Doctor had done anything that required him to fetch his sword. The Doctor, bless him, had left them to it; grumbling to himself as he leafed through her research books and occasionally giving the three of them a fretful glance that was soon concealed by a dopey grin and manic wave.

They’d asked about her doctorate; no ceremony to speak of, she’d told them, nothing special anyway. Nothing worth attending; she probably wasn’t even going to go. She didn’t really know even now what had motivated such a lie – she wished she hadn’t said it as soon as they’d left, followed by the Doctor who’d bobbed around her for several minutes like he was expecting something that he was a bit frightened of before settling for a hasty kiss on her cheek and a comically chivalrous bow that had made her laugh for hours afterwards.

Maybe she was just used to lying, too accustomed to pretending that she didn’t need anyone for anything.

“Doctor Song, I believe?”

The voice ran like a current through to River’s toes, freezing her where she stood. She dared to spin around after allowing a moment for the cynicism to ebb away, graduation robe whirling around her and pulse thumping in her ears. When after three heavy blinks the Doctor was still there, almost engulfed by a frankly stupidly huge bunch of golden sunflowers, she trusted that he wasn’t a figment of her imagination enough to stalk towards him.

The old hall was incredibly dusty; she cursed it under her breath for making her eyes water, because that was certainly to blame as opposed to the gorgeously sweet smile he was giving her which seemed at odds with that big old Scottish face.

“You’re here,” she breathed, clumsily gathering the bouquet when he pushed it into her arms.

“No flies on you.” He flicked the tassel on her cap, pale blue eyes glimmering. “Nice hat. How do you make it stay on, with that hair? It seems against the laws of physics-”

River threw her free arm around his shoulders, yanking him to her with a hand fisted in his jacket in a fierce hug until the sunflower wrapping crackled indignantly between them, and burying her nose firmly in his shoulder. He reciprocated with hands that settled at her back instinctively – this body was almost getting the hang of this hugging thing – with a pressure that was gentle but enough to let her know that she wasn’t alone in whatever feelings were driving the need for such contact. “ _Thank_ you,” she murmured thickly, her voice almost lost to her hiding place against him.

She pulled back, her eyes fixed on a spot somewhere around his collar, and he realised why she’d buried herself away in his arms; a feeble attempt to prevent him seeing the tears gathering in the rims of her eyes that he was now shockingly aware of. “You’re welcome.” He took the sunflowers back from her to salvage them, fluffing out the crushed petals and avoiding River’s unsettlingly intense gaze.

“I… thank you,” she settled for, the original words that had been burning at the forefront of her mind becoming tangled in her throat. She worried at her bottom lip, wondering what he’d have said if she’d been a little more confident to stick with her first words, before a sharp inner pang told her she may not have wanted to find out.

He smiled wryly. “You’re still welcome. Sorry I missed the ceremony; couldn’t risk running into your parents and disrupting the timelines.” They’d often asked him to drop them off wherever River happened to be, along with a gentle hint that they wished him not to follow; they could easily have been here, his Ponds, Amy cheering and Rory crying for their childhood-best-friend-daughter.

River smiled sadly. “There was no danger of that.”

His hand squeezing her shoulder brought her eyes back to him. “I have a request for you.” He bit his tongue sharply as _wife_ skirted dangerously on the edge of it. “Remember when you got stuck halfway through climbing in the window of the school gymnasium at three in the morning, and you shouted loud enough for the whole of Leadworth to hear?”

River clamped her lips together. “How do you know about that?” she asked lowly, an unashamed glimmer in her eyes that looked an awful lot like pride.

“Your dad told me once. Who was it that came to help you?”

“I swore him to secrecy when we were fifteen! That’s punishable by a serious Chinese burn-”

“River,” he persisted, raising his eyebrows pointedly. She didn’t have to answer, of course; they both knew. Amy had been the only one tall enough to reach Mels’ dangling legs and pull her down, while Rory had stood by biting his nails and insisting that they be careful before continuing to reproach her for days afterwards. “Start asking them. They always want to see you, and they’ll always come when you call. It hasn’t changed.”

She curled her hands into fists at her sides, severely repressing the urge to hug him again. She’d never known anyone who was so talented at saying the right thing who just as often managed to say things that were spectacularly wrong.

“I’m proud of you,” he went on, watching her nose scrunch adorably at the compliment. “Even though it _is_ archaeology…”

His lip curled in disgust; he’d grown used to exaggerating his distaste for the subject over the years for the sole purpose of riling her. Her eyes widened innocently. It was only when she asked, sounding slightly wounded, “What’s the matter with archaeology?” that he realised with _joy_ that this was the first time he had outright insulted her profession. “You said you thought it was a good idea-!”

“Oh, shut up. I do; I always do. You’d do well to remember that in the future. Your future, at least. Tell you what, though, _I_ never got a lavish ceremony like this,” he remarked sulkily, eyes casting across the flamboyant banners and balloons scattered through the empty hall.

“Get a _proper_ doctorate and you might.” She cocked an eyebrow knowingly when he gaped at her, offended.

“Excuse me! I’ll have you know I am a doctor of everything.”

“Or a doctor of nothing?” she quipped, giggling.

It was such a blessing to see her like this, without the weight of worlds on her shoulders. The thought that in a matter of hours she’d be confined to the bottom of the lake, however quickly he had endeavoured to get her out, made every fibre of him shiver. “I’m sorry,” he murmured solemnly.

Her smile was irrepressible. She was bouncing on her toes, not even caring that she was behaving like his younger self. “What for, sweetie?” He looked back at her, and that face like a stormy sky planted her feet back on solid ground with a soft _thump_. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”

He inhaled sharply, as if trying to bring himself back to some sort of sense. Never let her see the damage. She might not have been able to escape what was going to happen to her in a matter of hours, but she didn’t need to guess that it was coming. “I have to go. Don’t worry,” he assured her quickly, seeing her eyebrows pinch together in disappointment. “You’ll see me again very soon.”

He pushed the squashed sunflowers gently into her hands, watching her with a smile as she fingered the petals lovingly and inhaled the sweet nectary scent of them. “I love sunflowers,” she told him, a second before her eyes shot up. “But I suppose you know that.”

“Doctor Song!” He drawled out her new title playfully, and all she could think about was how very good it sounded in those gravelly Scottish tones of his. “I know everything.”

She pulled him into another hug before he left, this time having the good sense to set the flowers to one side.

“Remember this,” he whispered against her curls. “And be brave.” As if she ever needed reminding. “You are going to be magnificent, Doctor River Song.” And the privilege of seeing his words make her swell with pride gave enough charge to his smile to allow it to endure their goodbye.

He was browsing a bazaar for some unknown present to bring to her on his next visit, almost skipping from stall to stall wondering which version of his wife he’d surprise next, when the Tardis phone ringing interrupted him. Apparently, Clara needed him for something.

 


	14. Save my Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, look at that. I lied!  
> As you’ll see, this takes place after the events of Death in Heaven (S8 Finale), but before the Doctor goes to meet Clara in the café (for those who hadn’t guessed, the phone call at the end of the last chapter was Clara calling the Doctor at the beginning of Dark Water after Danny’s death).  
> This WILL be the last one for a little while. Probably.  
> It explores the Doctor and River’s past as well as their present, and I hope you enjoy it.

_“Hi Doctor… it’s me again. Clara. Look, if you could just get back to me about the café; ugh, time travel – in case you haven’t got it yet, I left – or I will leave – you a message sometime last week. And I don’t want to be waiting in there for hours and have you not turn up… again. Anyway, I really - I need to talk to you, Doctor, and it’s actually quite important, so just – just show up. Ok? Ok. Bye.”_

The answerphone, apparently – disappointedly – not smashed beyond repair, tormented him day upon day. Clara’s beautiful heartbroken face still burned at the forefront of his mind, whilst the shrill voice of Missy screamed perpetually in his ears.

The last time he’d opened the doors he’d been met with empty space where Gallifrey was supposed to be, and now he sat slumped in his ship deciding that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he never opened them again.

_"Everything that happened today is on you. All of it, on you.”_

Of course, the Tardis had other ideas. She was parked somewhere mysterious – oh, who was he kidding, he knew full well by now – and refusing to budge.

So was he. He sat petulantly in the console seat, snarling at the ceiling. “You can’t keep doing this. It’s kidnapping.” The Old Girl shivered, and he folded his arms. “I missed her too, but we can’t – _you_ can’t – just park outside her house whenever you feel like it. You know how this works. Chances are these days are numbered, and we don’t want to waste them.”

He knew he was arguing with himself more than with the Tardis; and their connection was such that if he’d really, truly wanted to leave then she’d have let him.

His resolve, weak as the rest of him, easily cracked. The chilly summer air was suffocating, a reminder of the beauty of the Earth that he’d failed to save. Just stood by, like the idiot he was, like the _officer_ , while others gave their lives.

“No,” he whispered half-heartedly, resting his head heavily against the Tardis door as he gazed upon River’s sweet little house in which she’d lived out her Professor days. Even after a millennium he still remembered how it felt like coming home; the zingy smell and cosy furniture and exotic souvenirs peppered along every surface, like all of River poured between four walls. “This is all I did when I was younger; she’s not being made to look after me anymore. Not this me.” He scowled indignantly at the vibrations of his ship. “Don’t argue with me!”

The sunflowers on either side of the gravel path up to the door smiled at him through the darkness, telling him that she was past Manhattan.

_“To save her soul? But who, my dear, will save yours?”_

He ran calloused fingers across the smooth wood of the front door, painted a perfect Tardis blue, and he would have wondered when or why his feet had decided to carry himself to the doorstep was too busy remembering _“We’re almost out of paint.”_

_“That’s because you’re getting it everywhere but the door, sweetie.”_

_He wipes the grin from her face by leaning into her and leaving perfect splodge of blue paint on the end of her nose._

_“Stop it!” she gasps, and he seizes the opportunity._

_“Make me.”_

_They waste another bucket of paint hurling it each other until River, doubled over with laughter, says something about creatures called Smurfs._

He curled his hand into a fist, letting it hover a millimetre away from the door as he pondered over whether or not this was actually a good idea, and was just considering turning on his heel and getting straight back into his box because what good could he possibly do in this state, when the door swung away from his hand.

“Who needs an alarm clock when you’ve got him indoors leaving the brakes on?”

River’s hand gripped the doorframe leisurely, dressed in a very familiar beige shirt that he still thought would have looked better coupled with a bow tie, oversized on her frame and crumpled from its purpose as a makeshift nightie.

_“River, I’m running out of clothes. Just buy some pyjamas!”_

_“No.” She juts her chin out defiantly, still tucked in the nightwear that she alternates with his used-to-be favourite shirt; an old red jumper of her mother’s._

Her eyes were half-shut, but even in her drowsy state she took in his dilapidated form in an instant and it seemed to shake her awake. “Sweetie, what’s the matter?”

He loved her. He loved that there was no question regarding what he was doing on her doorstep in the middle of the night. He loved that she knew before mere seconds had passed that there was something wrong. And he needed that; he needed her and the acceptance that she gave him, seemingly in that second more than he’d ever need anything in his lives.

He couldn’t find the words to tell her all of that, so resolved to show her in every way she’d taught him over the years; he needed to feel wanted, for the loneliness clawing at his insides to subside if only for minutes.

Hands clawing roughly at her hips, he dragged her forwards until she stood with him in the biting darkness, close enough for him to crush his lips against hers. His grip slid up to cradle her head, tipping it back until her head bumped against the doorframe and worrying that it was far too much and far too unlike him but so far past caring. The force of her against him as she reciprocated made him dizzy, just about enough to engulf his grief whole, and he wondered how long they’d have to do this before he could die sweetly from suffocation-

River pulled away, gasping in a needed breath, and the warmth fell away as quickly as it had risen to leave him bitterly cold. “What’s happened?” she breathed against his mouth.

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” he muttered desperately, thick tears welling in his eyes at the pain brought on merely thinking about the past days. It only seemed to hit him there, where even with River almost holding him up it took every ounce of him not to fall at her feet and weep. “I’m sorry. I just, I – I need…” _You._ He searched out her eyes through the darkness, begging. “Let me in. Please. I just can’t be alone now. Please-”

The gentle weight of her fingers settled against his lips. “Doctor. You don’t need to ask.”

* * *

He rifled through the cupboards as River poured hot water into two mugs, opening the biscuit tin and not able to help smiling at the sight of a small mountain of Jammie Dodgers, specially bought by his darling wife. He helped himself to one, even if it didn’t have the same almost intoxicating effect that it had had on his younger self, and another memory clicked into place-

_“It’s not funny, River! Look! Look! There were seventeen and now there are sixteen!”_

_“Oh, honey, get a life!” River rolls her eyes, pointedly pushing the biscuit tin away from where it’s been violently thrust under her nose._

_He keeps it up, because they both enjoy the play-arguing more than they probably should. “My own wife, stealing from me!”_

_“Sweetie, I promise you, I didn’t touch any of your bloody Jammie Dodgers! I don’t even like them!”_

_He gasps, staggering backwards. “Take that back!”_

Deciding on Jelly Babies – bless her, she had a whole shelf dedicated to packets of them – to accompany the tea, he let River usher him to the sofa where she settled against him until the honeyed smell of sleep and fresh laundry woven into her clothes and hair soothed the tremor from his hands. He offered her the red Jelly Babies and let his eyes cast over the shelves and shelves of books peppered with the odd intergalactic trinket or old photograph of two or three or four beaming faces.

“Whatever it is, it’ll pass. You’ll be alright,” River murmured, fingers threading through his hair. He lay against her heavily once the Jelly Babies had disappeared, cup of tea clutched in one hand, curled into her side like a wounded child.

He sighed against her chest, pressing his eyes shut to breathe in the warm, musky smell of her and forget the horrific images flickering across his mind just for a moment. “I’ve had a terrible few days, wife.”

She shifted them so they were pressed nose to nose, eyes wide with concern. “Tell me.”

“My childhood best friend lied to me,” he explained wearily, knowing that only his wife could understand something so cryptic after all he had shared with her.

“He came back?” she asked softly.

He nodded slowly, bringing her with him where their foreheads were still pressed together. “As a she; Scottish, mad as ever. Hell-bent on bringing the world to its knees… she’s dead now. God knows for how long. She gave me Gallifrey’s co-ordinates that weren’t actually Gallifrey’s co-ordinates. I should have known. But I looked anyway.”

“Oh, my love.” She lifted his knuckles, discovering the bruised and broken skin she knew she’d find there and running her thumb across them lightly. “You should have come here sooner.”

“I should have,” he agreed absent-mindedly, pillowing his head on her chest and tracing his fingers along the slender curve of her hip through her – his, theirs – nightshirt. “I’m going to lose Clara.”

“Don’t say that.”

“No, I am. I’m going to make sure of it. PE – Danny – will be able to come through from the Nethersphere soon, and they can live their little human lives. It’s about time I stopped interfering.”

His eyes lifted to meet hers, seeking silent permission, and only in that moment did he realise how much it was something he needed. All the worst decisions he’d made had been ones decided alone.

 _My friends have always been the best of me_.

And River had always been the best of the best. There was something he’d always felt lingered in her, something thrumming and familiar and grounding. He remembered the day he’d discovered it, standing over his cot and hers; she wasn’t human. She’d seen things most humans wouldn’t believe, lost things they’d never understand, and had knowledge of which mere mortals daren’t have spoken. There it was, mingling among the emerald and trails of gold. Wisdom, far beyond even her years, giving weight to that reckless, boundless adoration that he dearly wished she could see reflected in his eyes.

_“Kneel, Doctor, and we shall crush the life from your puny form for the glory of the Sontaran empire!”_

_The next thing to slice through the silence is the clink of an empty glass against wood, as the one remaining customer swivels around on her barstool._

_She’s enjoying this more than anyone should ever enjoy having a fleet of very cross Sontarans pointing guns at her head. Hooking a finger around the nose piece of her sunglasses, she wears an infuriatingly sexy grin. A lioness, he thinks, the most decent thought of many that leave him barely able to look her in the eye. “You know, boys… I came here to drink wine and kick some Sontaran arse. And I’m all out of wine.”_

_He rolls his eyes at his impossibly camp wife; making a mental note never to introduce her to Jack Harkness for fear that the Universe would spontaneously combust._

_“Hello sweetie.”_

Unbelievably vain. Not to mention patronising. She’d been hated by many, shot at by even more, but she’d never cared so long as he was by her side. People assumed that he’d fallen for her because she was mad, because she was brilliant and sexy and ever so dangerous. They’d been right; he’d been drawn to her, carried away helplessly in the whirlwind that perpetually seemed to trail in her wake.

However, that was just the mask. The smokescreen, oh so carefully painted. No; he’d been drawn to the façade, but that wasn’t what had made him stay. She liked to be as arrogant as he did, could have flirted the stars into black holes if she’d so wished, because the act helped her as much as his aided him.

But underneath that, no more or less River than the hard exterior, was what drew him to her doorstep after an agonising day, always. A heart so stuffed with love that it was an amount such as his two could scarcely contain; a quiet, gentle acceptance of whatever he happened to be hauling with him on his weary shoulders; compassion, always, bubbling not far beneath the burning surface.

She was better than him, though. Better at holding herself together, better at being alone, better at loving him. Better at all of it. “River… my River,” he murmured softly, flipping her hand over and tracing childish Gallifreyan doodles into her wrist. “You are …amazing. I could have died today not having told you that.”

“Anyone could die any day, my love, and there’ll always be things left unsaid no matter when it happens. That’s no way to think.”

He fingered the dusting of grey at the base of her wonderfully tousled hair. “You’ve done Manhattan, haven’t you? I saw the sunflowers.”

“Two years ago, next week,” she confessed.

“Do you want me here?”

“No. I want you to go and see Clara. If only to say goodbye, you have to talk to her.”

Of course she was right, but the truth was still more than capable of twisting in his stomach enough to cause physical pain. His fingers curled around her sleeve, seeking help. “I can’t do this anymore. I know I’ll end up going back, seeing the stars, but right now I can’t see it. I don’t want to see it. I’m not a good man, River.” He frowned suddenly, hearing an echo in his old brain. “You said I was the best man you’d ever known at the Byzantium. Why would you say that?”

“Because you are. Well, you share the title with my father.”

He smiled resignedly, not convinced but appreciating it all the same. “What time is it here?”

“Just coming up to four o’clock on Monday morning.”

He winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, love.” She slipped a hand under his chin to join their gazes. “Listen to me. I need to know you’re not going to travel alone. You know what it does to you.”

“I’m not going to travel alone.” Not a lie, strictly. He wasn’t planning to do any travelling at all, not without Clara there. The Universe wasn’t quite so marvellous when it couldn’t be seen through the eyes of a human.

Seemingly appeased by his evasive pledge, it didn’t take her long to slip into a light sleep against his shoulder. Before his resolve, hardened by her words, could begin to weaken, he carried her to her bed. Pulling the covers over her and pressing a lingering kiss to her temple, he left the present on the bedside table that he’d been buying when Clara had summoned him what felt like far longer ago than mere days.

_“That’s a pretty necklace.”_

_River fingers the ruby hanging around her neck absent-mindedly. “Yes, it is.”_

_“Stolen, I assume?”_

_“No, actually. Bought.”_

_“Oh. River Song, buying things? Has the cosmos gone mad?”_

_“I wasn’t the one who bought it. It was… an admirer.”_

_“An admirer? As in, an admirer of you? River? My wife?”_

_He can tell by her smirk that he wasn’t quite as successful in his attempt not to sound insanely jealous as he’d hoped. “Get that look off your face, you daft man. You have nothing to worry about.”_

_He buys her a diamond necklace that evening before dinner. It is certainly not a competitive gesture, he insists, rather defensively, when River teases him. But the glimmer in his wife’s eyes suggests she doesn’t quite believe him._

_“One day, my love, you will understand the beautiful irony of your jealousy.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I’d write this as consolation in advance for the next chapter…  
> This chapter was also partly in response to the critical comments I've been seeing of late around the Internet regarding the potential return of River's character. While many seem to dislike her character due to her overconfident nature, I personally think it's portrayed that these "annoying" traits are largely a façade for, well, a "vulnerable side she keeps well hidden". I adore River, and her character is the reason I began writing these stories, so I just wanted to take a moment to sing her (and Alex Kingston's, of course!) praises.  
> Thank you all again for the support. Let me know your thoughts! x


	15. Fire with Fire (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor learns that you have to be careful what you wish for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is here! I can't say it enough: thank you for your support and patience.  
> Warning you now for a few uses of strong language from the outset of this particular chapter. Oh, and some serious feels.

_“Thank you for making me feel special.”_

_“Thank you for exactly the same.”_

The Tardis floated through galaxy after beautiful galaxy on the bottomless ocean of empty space; the Doctor tried to force himself down to a planet, an asteroid, a bloody moon, _somewhere_ where he could find distraction enough to dull the ache.

Nothing could. He was never going to see his Clara again, and the silence was crushing; nothing could hope to elevate it, and he didn’t even particularly want that pressure to be relieved. Travelling alone was nightmarish, but he categorically refused to find someone else to drag with him and begin the cycle all over again. Right now the absence of his best friend was an almost palpable enough entity to be a companion in itself, and it had only been days since he’d said goodbye to her. God, what was wrong with him?

Loneliness. The beginning and end of all that plagued him, crouching at the source of every problem. He’d die from it one day, he knew; it wouldn’t be a bullet or a ray or poison, it would be this; just as lethal, yet far more painful.

Of course, there was a remedy to this particular poison; one he’d used just days ago. He hated himself for wanting his wife to be the one who fixed everything, but he was far too accustomed to the self-loathing for it to even remotely prevent him from reaching for the controls. Imagining curling up in her arms again, basking in her voice and smell like spice and sunshine enough to forget the pressing weight of the rest of the cosmos, set him in his resolve. It would do no harm to pop in again, just for a brief-

There was a crackle like lightning, and the faint burning scent of displaced time energy. Relief flooded through him at the sensation of an oh-so familiar presence. “River,” he sighed, turning to where his wife had materialised behind him. “I am so very glad you’re here. How can you teleport straight into the Tardis? I didn’t think that was-”

“You _bastard_!”

Admittedly, he’d had far worse greetings. He’d happily have taken the flack for his future self’s transgressions as he had countless other times, but as he stopped to take her in properly he very soon realised that this River had not come from a day his future.

The dress gave it away. Even without it, he knew that there was only one day- one utterly horrific day- that could make her like this.

_No. Not now. Please._

Her face was streaked with tears, doing little to obscure the blinding fury written across it. He felt his hearts lurch, rolling up into his throat before dropping into his stomach. “River, I-”

“SHUT UP!” She held a finger up, shoulders heaving with each breath she drew. “Don’t even _think_ about speaking to me unless you’re spoken to. Maybe not even then. Maybe _never_. Do. You. Understand?”

Even the Tardis hissed, lights flashing in alarm as she tried in vain to soothe her child. He nodded dumbly, clamping his hands at his sides and ready to receive the punishment that he’d deserved over a millennium ago.

 

_“Can you forgive me?”_

_It’s the most important thing to him in this Universe right now. Because she is literally all he has within it, and he needs to know that he hasn’t lost her too._

_Her irritable sigh isn’t a good sign. She sits very still, in the console room seat the next morning; both of them having passed a sleepless night. Her calmness seems to have subsided in the hours since Manhattan. “Do you care? Really, Doctor, do you? You know I’m going to love you no matter what you end up doing.”_

_She says it like it’s a curse. Maybe it is._

_He wants so desperately to reach out to her, but he doesn’t know how. Yesterday has stacked layers upon the already insurmountable barrier that exists between them and he doesn’t know what in the hell he’s supposed to do now. He doesn’t even know who he is._

_“River,” he begs, because she’ll know. She’s always known. And the way he keeps catching her looking at him like she’s thinking about yesterday and all days and her entire life and thinking that perhaps, after all, she does blame him for all of it._

_He breathes three tiny little words into the space between them, just the very precipice of the desperate ache manifesting like black smog in every corner of his soul._

_“I need you.”_

_It’s wrong. He knows that. It’s sickeningly selfish and childish and pathetic. But he’s given up on trying to be good._

_She storms upstairs without a word, eyes burning with furious tears. He doesn’t see her for hours._

The very same tears in the very same eyes, he has time to think. Seconds and millennia apart. He should have expected this, really; she searched out versions of him that could give her what she needed, be that proper love or a proper fight. She'd come to him because she knew he could take the punishment for his younger self, and who was he to deny her that?

“How could you have let that _happen_?” she asked icily, stalking him like prey around the console.

“I couldn’t have stopped it.” He couldn’t remove the bite his words carried. Even after a thousand years, like everything else he had failed to fix, he had never made peace with himself over Manhattan. “You know that.”

“Then what the hell,” she prodded him roughly in the chest with a sharp finger, “Is the point of you?”

“You sound like your mother.”

She gave him a stinging slap hard enough to crack his cheekbone. “You don’t deserve to talk about her as if you knew her!”

He winced only slightly, curbing his reaction to the pain; however bad it was, he knew hers would currently be far worse. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not!” she hissed, choking on a sob.

He scoffed, face contorting in a sharp glare. “You think I’m not sorry?”

“I know you’re not.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

River staggered back at the accusation, jaw setting. “Fuck you,” she snarled, fumbling with frightening impatience in the bag she’d brought with her until she pulled out her diary. She pushed it into his chest roughly, making him stagger backwards. “Take it! I don’t want it, I don’t want- _this_.”

Exhausted by her own spew of insults, she puffed out a weary sigh and pushed him aside to storm upstairs before he could retaliate.

* * *

 

He followed her, because that was the last thing his younger self would have done and evidently his younger self was not doing a very good job of handling this whole situation.

River had found her way to their room, and having not bothered to close the door he could have found his way to her on the basis of sound alone. The noise radiating from where she was contained, the embodiment of a tornado between four walls, was akin to that of a legion at war, and the Doctor braced himself as he approached for what he was going to find there.

The room was in utter disarray. The overpowering tangy stench was soon explained by the perfume bottle fragments scattered by the dresser; the mirror had an ugly crack running across it where glass had been hurled against glass. The bedside table was overturned, its contents strewn across the floor in a broken heap. And in the middle of it all, his wife, flushed red with the exertion of ripping the world apart piece by piece.

River hadn’t finished her rampage when he so rudely interrupted it; she stood at the foot of the bed, sizing him up like a lioness. “Leave me alone.”

He bravely took another step into the room and a remaining perfume bottle very narrowly missed his face, shattering off the doorframe and landing in a million pieces at his feet. “I said, leave me _alone_!”

He held his hands up in a surrendering gesture when River wielded herself with a hairbrush because she was out of bottles, drawing her arm back with all the intention of hurling it at him. “Easy.”

“Do you want me to break that face?” she growled.

He wriggled his aching jaw, still tender from her slap. She didn’t want - or need - a calming influence here. Fight fire with fire. “Do you want me to be afraid of you? Because that’s not going to happen. You think they’d be proud of you, if they saw you like this?”

He saw the words hit her, the tremble in her chest. “You son of a bitch,” she spat. “We’ll see how smug you are when I kill you.”

“And what then?” he challenged. “Where will you go, what will you do? I’m the only person you have left in this Universe, _wife_ , so don’t kid yourself.”

“I _hate_ you,” she breathed vehemently, voice fizzing.

“I know that. And I know you’re too much of an idiot to ever do anything about it.”

“Oh, I will. I mean it. I don’t care if you’re all I have, you hear me? I’d rather be alone than have to live out the rest of my sorry days with you!” She reached for her bag, fishing around inside it wildly.

“ _Stop_ it.” His voice shook unexpectedly, feeling a horrible surge of panic when she produced her vortex manipulator and set about fixing it to her wrist.

In a flash his hand was curled around her wrist, forceful enough to leave bruises on the very one she’d shattered for him. River struggled violently, lashing out at his chest, neck, face with her free hand, insisting in a feral tone that he let her go. But he remained firm in his purpose, managing to yank the vortex manipulator off her wrist before hurling it with all of his remaining strength at the far wall.

There was an almighty spark as it bounced off the metal, landing in several pieces on their bedroom floor – smashed beyond repair. He felt a sickening glimmer of satisfaction that was soon nipped in the bud by River’s murderous glare. Defeated, she staggered backwards until the bed hit the backs of her knees and she could sink down onto it, sitting perfectly still among the remnants of the storm.

He risked edging towards her, feeling a sickness in the pit of his stomach. What the hell sort of a man was he, allowing her to even become _close_ to spiral down into this? She’d never let him, back in those frightful days; she’d pulled him back from the Angel, from becoming lost, and he couldn’t even now extend her the same courtesy. “River-”

She flinched. “Don’t. I want to be alone.”

“You wouldn’t have come here if you wanted to be alone.”

“I don’t know why I came here. I don’t know why I ever do!” There was something switching in her, the anger dissolving into thick tears that were threatening to burst, cracks lining her voice to drain the venom from it. “You _never_ learn, Doctor! You never even know what to do when things go wrong because of you, you just apologise and hope that makes everything better but it _doesn’t_!”

“River, I know-”

“You do _not_ know.” She closed her eyes tightly, dragging a pillow to her chest and hugging it there with a sniffle. One thing he found strangely surprising about his wife was her ability to revert into an incredibly childish creature whenever affected by something terrible. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye!”

Her voice stopped just short of howling, and he could barely listen to it. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, cringing at himself because he was doing exactly what she resented about him but more because he was at a complete loss as to how else to go about this. He fell to his knees at her feet; ignoring the glare she gave him that was fierce enough to scorch flesh.

“River. Melody,” he added, guessing that she was feeling closer to the latter at this moment. “I know how much it burns,” he tried, pushing past her impatient sigh. “Believe me. And I _am_ sorry, even though you’re sick of hearing it. But please, you’re not – you’re not alone now.”

“Aren’t I? Because that’s what it feels like.” She jumped to her feet to pace the room, restless, lost. He followed her, praying that he wasn’t imagining the barely perceptible thaw. “They were my _parents_ ,” she yelled thickly, tears rolling freely down her face. “They were my best friends! And- you don’t even care!”

If he didn’t get her now, he dreaded that he never would. He took a step towards her cautiously, reaching his hands out towards her for fear that she’d become lost otherwise and cupping her own shaking hands tightly. “ _I_ do.”

The Doctor held his breath, praying with every fibre of his soul that she’d believe him enough to let him in. When she staggered forwards and fell blindly into his arms, she burst into a fresh round of tears and he very nearly did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...


	16. Fire with Fire (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this story is one of my favourite things to do. Thank you all for making it worthwhile!  
> This carries straight on from the previous chapter. Enjoy!  
> Note: The quote the Doctor thinks of in this chapter is of course from The Time Traveller's Wife.

 Several minutes passed before River could find any words; her sobs were wrenching enough to rattle straight through him, seeping into his bones. “I don’t blame you,” she managed, voice lost to the folds of his jacket. “I- it wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours either,” the Doctor insisted, because he could hardly agree with her.

She shuddered beneath him. “I’m just-”

He hushed her softly. “You know you don’t have to explain yourself.”

His wife choked on a thick sob, and he rubbed her back in smooth circles like she was a child. “They deserved better than that!” she wailed into his shoulder weakly.

“I know. But they’re together; they will be for the rest of their lives. That’s all they ever wanted.” That was exactly what she’d told him, all those years ago; they were so woven around each other that one couldn’t possibly hope to untangle their lives and determine the origins.

“How many times have you told yourself that over the years, I wonder,” she mused, voice still laden with tears. She pulled back to gaze up at him sadly. “They’ve been gone such a long time for you.” He nodded patiently and she raked a hand through her hair, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked away and lost herself to thought. “If that’s the case, why do you still bother with me now?”

“Oh, River.” It was half an impatient scold, half just sheer sadness that she’d think so little of him. “Please don’t tell me you really feel the need to ask that.”

She paused for a moment, playing with a loose thread on his jumper. “No. I suppose I don’t.” Her eyes remained fixed on his stomach even after her hands fell away in a feeble attempt to hide the fresh tears pooling in their rims.

“River,” he implored, gripping her forearms. “Our life was never just a side-effect of my life with them-”

“I know. I-”

“It’s been centuries for me, millennia, even, since that day, and here we are still. So don’t, don’t ever accuse me of not-”

“I wasn’t,” she mumbled, sounding almost too apologetic for him to bear. His fingers slid into her hair gently, cradling her to him because they both needed to be held right now. A way to hide your face, yes, but maybe that was exactly what she needed. Maybe they both needed to tuck themselves away from the rest of the Universe in each other’s arms.

“Listen to me,” he murmured into the miasma of her curls. “I lost them a long time ago and it still hurts me, and I know, I _know_ that you’re hurting. I always did. I was just too lost in my own grief and too selfish to be there for you. But I’m here now. You should know that whatever happens to you, River, some version of me is always going to be there. You’re never alone.”

She pulled back with blazing eyes, unable to settle. “But I am! Because they’re gone, they were the only family I had- _all_ I had- and I’m never going to see them again, and- back there, the you who’s just lost them hasn’t even noticed that I’m not there! I think – it wouldn’t have made a difference if I’d gone with them!”

“Don’t you dare go thinking that, not ever.” He remembered the days after Manhattan. When she went back he would cling to her until sleep found him, before he’d wake and find her to cling to all over again. Without her, he would have parked on that cloud far earlier than he did and without her words concerning not being alone rattling around his head he’d have been far more stubborn to remove. Of course, losing her parents had only made the looming threat of his wife’s departure seem too close, too real to bear; there’d been times when he’d barely been able to look at her. He hated himself for not having had enough of a conscience left to realise that of _course_ that burden would bleed through to her. “Right now, back there, my sole reason for living is you. And I need you to be strong for me.”

“But I’m sick of being strong for you!” she cried. “It shouldn’t be like this! I’m not supposed to be the one comforting you when _my_ parents have just died! Did it ever occur to you that maybe sometimes I don’t feel like being strong? Maybe I don’t feel like looking young and hiding the damage, but every time I see you, _my_ you, in that stupid bow tie I know I have to or- or you won’t like me, and- I’ll un-write _this_ and- I’ll lose _you_ , and-”

The Doctor pulled her back to him before she could say any more, feeling his hearts twisting violently in his chest. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong. That he’d have fallen in love with her anyway, without all the bravado. But he didn’t know that it was the truth. It was the truth now, of course, but his younger self was a different story. He knew why he’d fallen for her back then: because she was different to all the others in that she didn’t need- or want- someone to look after her; because she was brave and flirty and feisty and _mad_ , and she just didn’t care. The concept of danger had always thrilled him; he couldn’t help himself. And god, when she was being all River on him, smirking in the face of terror and tragedy, he’d fancied her like mad.

He’d always known really, deep down- though he had never cared to admit it to himself in his younger days- that she wore a façade, and one for his benefit at that. While it was an unending comfort that she felt she could be herself with this version of him, he honestly didn’t know how his younger self would cope if faced with what he had _really_ made River Song feel; if he saw the tears and the broken parts as well as the stoic smiles.

“I don’t expect you to be strong all of the time. Nobody can do that,” he said softly. He used to think, stupidly, blindly, naïvely, that she could. He didn’t even think about it when he was young. All she was to him was an impossibly brave woman who was fazed by nothing; he assumed that in her spare time she simply led her own reckless adventures- not that he’d been wrong there, but he had never given a thought that perhaps, just sometimes, she was fragile enough to need somebody to hold her together.

He was stupidly glad that he seemed to be that somebody, even if it was somebody he had taken a thousand years to become. “That’s why I’m here,” he told her with all the kindness he could manage, combing her hair tenderly away from her face to preserve it from the salty tears. “I know I’m hard work young; why do you think you see this version of me every time you’ve had an encounter with my younger self? Coincidence?” Seeing realisation seep into her features, softening them finally, he reached his hands behind her neck to scoop her hair back into its tie with nimble fingers. “I can’t change the way I treated you back then. But I _can_ compensate for it now.”

She sighed softly. “I don’t… it’s not as if I’m unhappy with younger you. Far from it. I wouldn’t change any of our days- they’re what I live for, especially now, I suppose- and I love you no matter what age you are or what face you have…” She earned a grateful kiss to her cheek for that. “But sometimes, it’s… it’s just nice to come _home_.”

Her words sent the Doctor into a bit of a stupor. He never thought he would have counted as someone’s home. He didn’t even have one himself; and his life could hardly count as a point of stasis for anyone- except, of course, someone like River. Ever-moving, crashing and tumbling ceaselessly, so very suited to her name. He supposed it was like that book said, the one she loved so much: _What is more basic than the need to be known? It is the entirety of intimacy, the elixir of love, this knowing._ River was only home where she was known. He supposed he was the same.

River’s bottom lip trembled. “I feel like I’ve lost everything. I don’t want you to leave me too.”

He shook his head insistently. “Our timelines are too intertwined for you ever to be without me for long.”

“I know, but that gives you all the more reason to leave. _This_ you. Because you’re still young in this body, aren’t you; you could decide today never to see me again, you could easily leave me, leave our timelines behind, and I wouldn’t even notice, I’d never know-”

“Shut up,” he instructed, but it was broken. Because she was right; he could. Had, in fact, a very long time ago when he’d accepted what he thought was the end. But a handful of chance meetings later and he was already, again and just as helplessly as the first time, too far gone.

“I’m not going anywhere. And once you pick yourself up from where you are now, you’ll realise you were stupid to ever think I would.”

He guided her by the hands back to their bed because the colour had all but gone from her face and he could sense the tremble in her knees, careful to avoid the shards of glass beneath their feet. She sunk onto the mattress heavily and rubbed her hands over her face, the Doctor settling next to her. “I don’t even know what to do now.”

“What do you feel like doing?”

“God.” A short and horribly bitter laugh came from her. “Crying.”

“Then cry for a bit.” He made sure to meet her eyes when she glanced up at him with her own doubtful pools of emerald as he knew she would, giving her a little reassuring nod. “It’s ok.”

“No it’s not,” she scoffed. “I told you yesterday-”

“That you try to hide the damage.” He rubbed his fingers over her left hand, the very same one she’d married him with, that she’d shattered only hours ago just to give him hope. His thumb traced up to her wedding finger, and he briefly found himself wondering if he could give her a wedding ring without disturbing the timelines too much. “I remember. And I know. But you don’t have to do that with _me_.”

River pressed her eyes shut, eyelashes stuck together in clumps. “You must have thought I was so strong.”

“Oh, I never believed it didn’t matter to you; I wasn’t _that_ much of an idiot. But I was too much of a coward to push you. I was at a loss as to how you managed to keep yourself together.”

“Well, evidently I didn’t.”

“Hey.” He slid a finger under her chin, making her eyes fall into his. “I prefer you without the veil, honey. And, in a… sad, horrible sort of way, I’m glad you came here and did this. Because I think you needed it.”

“I did.” Her make-up all cried away, he noticed the hollow rings of grey around her eyes. She’d find the version of him she’d left behind face-down on the console room floor in a few days, finally overcome by exhaustion, and he suspected that she wasn’t far off that stage now.

“And River?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re still the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.” She finally felt safe to let her face crumple. “I – this is my fault. If I hadn’t gone to-”

“No. Don’t ever think that. Promise me. I’ve done it, and it kills you. It was fixed in time; it would have happened in some variation with or without our influence, and I know it doesn’t feel that way now but one day you’ll realise that the outcome was a good one. They lived into old age, together; they killed all the Angels. And whose idea was it to create the paradox?” He nudged her gently. “Without your help, the three of us could have died back there.”

“I was the one who got caught up in the Angels first. You saved me.”

“We saved each other. All of us.” He lifted her hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles lightly. “Now, I know you didn’t sleep last night, so you’re not allowed to leave here until you do.”

His wife complied easily, too tired to bother even removing her shoes, curling up in a little ball on her side of the bed. She shifted towards him when he lay next to her, wedging her feet between his. “Sorry about the mess.”

“That’s quite alright.”

“And for your face.”

“You’ve done worse, sweetheart.”

She slipped an arm around his slim waist, anchoring herself to him. “I know it was good. For my parents,” she whispered, hand clenching around his shirt. “I just miss them so much.”

“Me too.” He briefly left her side to scoop up the broken pieces of the vortex manipulator, realising with a wince that he’d done a rather spectacular job of destroying it. “I’d better get started on fixing this while you get forty winks.”

River settled back against him, but instead of pillowing her head back on him she watched his face, as if looking for some sort of tell. He let her, meeting her gaze evenly until her pea-green eyes sharpened. “When are you?”

He gave her a wry smile; even he didn’t entirely know the answer to that, not the way she meant it. With a faint pang of surprise, he realised that having her here had given him enough of a purpose to make him forget the fresh agony of being alone. “I’m past Manhattan; does anything else matter?”

Satisfied, she tucked her head in the crook of his shoulder with a little sigh, and he resolved to stay awake by her side for as long as sleep would hold her. He owed it to her to forget about his terrible last days, as she had done on far too many occasions for his younger self.

“You don’t have to stay in here,” she murmured from the confines of his shirt.

“Does it make you sleep even a little better, me being here?” he asked softly.

“Of course it does.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to,” she said curtly, wriggling away from him as if regretting speaking so candidly.

The Doctor held her fast, nose burying in her hair. “I know. I didn’t marry you because I had to either.”

He could feel her smile against him. “Touché.”

* * *

 

She fell asleep; he hadn’t actually been expecting her to, at least not so quickly, but no sooner did the remnants of quiet sobs against his shirt die down than they were replaced by gentle snoring.

The Doctor was there when she awoke, for that crippling instant where she forgot all that had happened before she’d succumbed to sleep, blissfully unaware before the memory descended like an avalanche. He’d worried about his ability to hold her in this incarnation, only to realise that he needn’t have; being by her side was something wired deep within him, an instinct to protect her, a promise to keep to her parents, always.

 

“Go back to him,” he said softly, tracing loving circles into her back after filling her with chamomile tea down in the console room, away from the site of destruction she’d created upstairs. “He needs you, back there. You don’t know how much.”

It was coming back to him now; how something had switched after that first day, when the air had been heavy with anger and tearful silences had filled their hours. When River had returned from wherever she’d been she had carefully, patiently, pieced him back together.

He kissed the side of her head. “I’m sorry; it’s not going to be easy. But we get through it together.”

River huffed wearily. “Spoilers.”

“No; a promise. Give me a call when he drops you off at your flat, I’ll come and pick you up.”

She smiled weakly. “I feel like I’m cheating on you.”

“Don’t worry. The other fella has no idea.”

Her laugh was devoid of any joy, but he appreciated that she tried. The Doctor brushed the dampness from under her eyes, pressing a light kiss to her temple, and after fixing the mended vortex manipulator to her wrist he took hold of her hands and pressed her diary gently into them.

She was on the cusp of leaving when he called out her name with a desperate edge to his voice, wanting to give her something for the pain he could see simmering in her eyes.

“Sweetie?” she questioned softly. He was still worthy of the nickname, then; that was something.

“Remember, I…” He cast his glance to the floor, digging his hands in his pockets. “He loves you. He just doesn’t realise it as much as he rightly should at times like this.”

He caught her faint twitch of a smile, a jolt to his hearts. “I don’t know about that. Does he know I love him?”

“He’s always known that.”

She covered the footsteps she’d taken reluctantly away from him in a quick hop to pull him into a fierce kiss.

* * *

 

_His entire body aches._

_River snuck out a good few hours ago; wanting to be alone, he assumes. Wanting to be away from him. It’s not as if he can blame her. Everything she ever loved is gone and it’s all his fault._

_Speak of the devil. Footsteps on the stairs should make him straighten up, but he finds he isn’t able. When River’s gaze falls on him he remains hopelessly slumped in the console room chair, folded in on himself like a lost child._

_Her shoes clink softly against the console floor as she kicks them off, the only sound piercing the silence. She doesn’t speak a word as she pads over to his seat, settles in the space next to him so close that they are pressed together from shoulder to hip, and tucks her feet underneath her._

_It’s only when her head finds solace in the crook of his shoulder that he lets himself breathe again, and his entire body shakes as it leaves him. His eyes press themselves shut, feeling the warmth of her snuggled into his side, smelling the damp still haunting her limp curls from the graveyard and the strangely overwhelming scent of perfume._

_She seems a little better. He marvels at her for that; her ability to keep herself together. They sit for an eternity in silence, hands intertwined and bodies pressed together._

_River lifts her head eventually, making him do the same. “You’re going to be ok, my love.”_

_He shakes his head feebly._

_“You are,” she insists gently, swiping a tear from his face with her thumb and dropping a lingering kiss to his forehead. “I just know.”_

_He almost says it then. He always almost says it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, sweeties! Reviews would be greatly appreciated...  
> Also, it would be AMAZING if there are any artists out there who would like to draw any of the scenes in this story! I always get the images in my head, but I'm beyond useless at drawing... get in touch, fanart enthusiasts!


	17. Somewhere to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something to lighten the mood after the previous chapters. Hope you enjoy it!  
> Note: For the Twelfth Doctor, this is still between Death in Heaven and Last Christmas. For the Eleventh Doctor, evidently this takes place during The Power of Three (s7, ep4).  
> I wanted to put some Eleven in here because I feel like some of this has come across as quite critical of his Doctor, but it wasn't meant that way; I love him immensely and think he's wonderful. (As does River.)

“I didn’t do this.”

For the first time in all their lives, they’d had two consecutive visits in the right order. He’d made sure of it, receiving the call he’d told her to make just days after she’d come to him fresh from Manhattan. “You – he – just dropped me off,” she’d told him in a tiny, un-River voice, begging even though she didn’t have to. “I… I need you here.”

She was utterly exhausted after dedicating every second of her existence to holding his younger self together for god knows how long; when he turned up at her flat, he made sure to thank her for it, and she had promptly burst into tears. Now it was her turn to mourn, and his to do the holding.

Nothing at all had happened for the first three days- she’d barely spoken to him, only meekly accepting his cups of tea and kissing him briefly on the cheek every now and then as a gesture of gratitude for his company. And then everything had happened all at once.

They’d had a fight. Not a huge one, but with enough magnitude to make her scream at him even though he was very deliberate in not biting back.

And then she’d done something she _never_ did during their rows, and cried.

So he’d done something that he _always_ did to ask for forgiveness, and kissed her.

He’d carried her to her bed – not for anything other than to hold her. Now she was wrapped loosely in his arms under the safe haven of heavy covers, almost asleep. She needed sleep; he’d spent these last days trying to convince her so. It seemed to be his main occupation these days, luring his wife into slumber.

The light that flickered through the blinds was fast fading, only leaving a faint orange glow to fall lazily onto the bed and illuminate the microscopic particles of dust dancing in the air above them. In its current state her room was like the ghost of the one he knew so well, felt at home in; days of wallowing in grief had left it drooping with dust. One item held the exception; a photograph of River squashed between her parents, all beaming out from within a gleaming golden frame, in pride of place on the bedside table.

Milk. They’d fought about milk, or lack of it; he’d put an empty carton back in the fridge. It seemed so very trivial, in hindsight, so domestic. They probably would have laughed if they’d had it in them.

“Didn’t do what?” River mumbled sleepily, cracking one eye open. It struck her as they lay tucked in together how shockingly innocent all of this was, how sweet; her in soft cotton pyjamas that were too big for her, the Doctor still in his trousers and shirt. She’d told him a dozen times over that he didn’t have to stay with her, she honestly didn’t mind, but he insisted gently that he wanted to. Now their feet, enveloped by scratchy socks, were intertwined and she was indescribably glad that he was this stubborn.

His voice was tight with guilt. “I never even came to visit you.”

“That’s probably just as well; I don’t think you’d have been too happy about my being in bed with a strange man.” River tilted her head up just enough for her lips to touch his jaw, murmuring against it. “You know, this is your fourth day staying still. How haven’t you gone insane?”

“That probably has something to do with you being here.”

“Probably?”

He smiled wryly. “Only a bit.”

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t kept himself busy. He’d re-wired every electrical appliance in her flat, organised her books in alphabetical order on her shelves, marked her students’ dissertations and re-marked them when she chastised him for being too harsh. He had found himself at a bit of a loss as to how to pass the time, particularly given that his wife, understandably, provided little in the way of interaction. She’d remained in the same pyjamas, hair scraped in a messy bun atop her head and eyes permanently glazed over even when engaging in her new favourite pastime of rifling through old photo albums stuffed with pictures of her family. Watching her retreat into herself like a ghost before her time was easily worse than the mild boredom, or the domesticity; he could hardly blame his younger self for being unwilling to bear witness to such misery. Seeing a spark of the old River arise during the milk argument had almost been a relief.

But of course he was going to stay. He knew fine well that she had done exactly the same thing for him, during exactly the same period of mourning, so many years ago. And she might have acquired broken bones if he held her any tighter but he didn’t care. He saved all of this for her. And she needed him now. He supposed it was therapy for the both of them, even if she was unaware that in being here he was also soothing his own cracked soul.

He got up to make her 34th cup of tea, and made her laugh when he told her he’d been counting.

* * *

He stayed at River’s flat for almost two weeks – a personal record, most definitely – before she gently nudged him back to the stars; go and pick Clara up, sweetie, she’d insisted. Go and save some planets. I’ll be fine, thanks to you.

He didn’t mention that there was no Clara, not anymore.

River, he discovered – well, not discovered, as he’d known this for a long time, but rather remembered – kept him sane. The mere thought of it made him laugh; she had to be among the least sane people he’d ever met, but she was nonetheless his anchor. The eye of the Oncoming Storm.

It was a blessing, therefore, that her visits were apparently increasing in frequency. No sooner had he started drawing a rough replica of their scrambled timeline in chalk, trying to determine where would be safe to appear without causing too much of a ripple, when that old electric crackle buzzed through the console room.

The Doctor wheeled around from the chalkboard, finding his wife wearing a burgundy cocktail dress and a manic smirk. “Come here, you _gorgeous_ old time boy, you!”

“What-?” He bit back an undignified squeak as River threw herself at him, hugging him so tightly that his feet almost lost contact with the floor.

He winced, but he was laughing. “Stop, stop, stop it! River, this isn’t fair, you know I’m against this-!”

She cut off his protests with a fervent kiss, cupping his face and leaving a waxy crimson smudge across his lips. “I _bloody_ love you. Ooh.” She smacked her lips together. “Two different pairs in the same minute. I like it.”

“Sorry, _what_?”

She sprang away from him with a brilliant grin, pirouetting away from the console. “I have to go!”

He felt a twang of disappointment; after Manhattan, it made his soul lighter to see her like this. “You’re going already?”

“Yep! Because I have a date to get back to, and you have somewhere to be!”

He glared at her back. “A _date_ … where?”

“Corayanin!”

The name rang a bell. “Wait – I’ve done Corayanin already! We went there with my last face.”

“Think, sweetie!” She winked as her hand went to the device on her wrist, disappearing in a spark.

The Doctor stood dumbly in the empty console room for a moment, head reeling as it attempted to process the last thirty seconds, and gasped as the memory came flooding back. He was at the controls in a flash. “Oh, _Corayanin_!”

* * *

Corayanin: not as much fun as the leaflets promised. The Doctor takes a sip of his lemonade as his gaze trails around the – well, really, it’s not much more than a glorified bar, without any games machines, thank you very much, even though there were in the pictures. Which makes perfect sense, because this was all River’s idea. She likes going to bars. She likes going to bars with a certain Jack Harkness, and he likes to pretend that that isn’t something that happens.

Tonight, though, she’s with him. He’d picked her up from prison, craving some company and something to stave off the boredom; her parents stay at home more often than they travel now, and Amy keeps lecturing him about his travelling alone – what’s going to happen to him. The forecast is bleak, apparently. The forecast for Earth doesn’t look particularly good, either, if those little black cubes are anything to go by. Mysterious objects falling from the sky was rarely a good thing, in his experience; but it didn’t mean he had the patience to sit in the Pond living room for another _minute_ watching the damn things.

Stewing about her parents and the entirely probable invasion of Earth by cube-shaped aliens is apparently filed under a list of Things That Are Not Advisable When on a Date. River has rolled her eyes seven times in four minutes and the alarm bells that come free with being a husband are pinging in his head. A storm is brewing and it goes by the name of Song…

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Her voice is crisp. She’s next to him in a dress the same colour as her wine, diamond earrings glinting under the artificial light.

“No, dear.”

“Good.” River’s perfectly made-up eyes pin him to his barstool. “Because I’ve had an awful week, since you didn’t ask. I just want to have a nice evening with a version of you who actually knows who I am, is that too much to hope for?”

He knows a warning when he hears one, and shakes his head quickly. “No. Course not,” he stumbles, twirling his special straw. The hand resting on the bar is suddenly being covered by River’s, and it comes as such a surprise after her outburst that he jerks it away instinctively.

His wife’s eyes flash. “Don’t,” she warns in a low voice, nails digging painfully into his fingertips before he can pull his hand away altogether.

He yelps. “ _Ow_ , River!”

“Don’t you dare go younger you on me tonight,” she almost snarls, not relinquishing her grip; that’s ok, because he suddenly feels very much that he deserves it.

His delicate eyebrows dip. “What do you mean?”

“You know full well what I mean.” Her voice wavers, and he groans as she lets go of him altogether and slides off her barstool, heels clacking like claps of thunder against the dancefloor.

“River! River, wait! I didn’t mean to! Please…”

She’s gone, lost in the swaying multihued mass of bar-goers. _Kudos, Doctor._ How could he strip the Universe apart and build it back up again with his knowledge of the stars and quantum physics, yet not even get through a date with his wife without said wife wanting slightly to kill him? Again.

River left her wine. He takes an experimental sip and regrets it immediately, wincing in disgust as a little of it slips down his throat and spitting the rest out.

“Now you listen to me, son!”

The Doctor gets such an almighty fright that it’s all he can do not to fall off his barstool. The source of the voice props his elbows on the bar to clasp his hands and watches him compose himself with a stern expression but a sliver of amusement in his eyes. “You can’t be going around with a face like that in a place like this. Mind you, you shouldn’t really be wearing what you are in a place like this either.”

He straightens his bow tie defensively, rubbing a hand over his cheeks. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Aside from the chin? You look like you’ve been licking nettles. Which I wouldn’t put past you.” He smirks, smoothing back his shock of grey hair and ordering something called an Old Fashioned that sounds utterly repulsive. “What are you doing on your own?”

“I’m not – well, I wasn’t on my own. I was with… someone…” He stretches behind him to search the crowd wistfully, seeing no bob of wild curls that would lessen the guilty ache. “I’m not sure if I am anymore.”

“You’re here with someone?” the man echoes sharply. “Then where is she?”

His brow furrows, realising he doesn’t actually know the answer. “Um… outside, I think.”

The man raises a frighteningly impressive eyebrow. “Ok, next question: if you know she’s outside, then why are you here, inside? You’re on a date and you’re apart? That’s rubbish. You’re rubbish,” he decides, taking a smooth sip of his drink.

The Doctor’s shoulders sag; he counts the bubbles in his lemonade sulkily. “Well, I don’t think she wants to talk to me at the moment…”

The stranger rolls his eyes. “Oh, Chinny, you’re doing it wrong! She never, _ever_ leaves without wanting you to follow her; you should know that by now. But you’re young, so you can be forgiven.”

He smiles wryly. “I’m really, really not young.”

“You really, really are. Come on.” The stranger slams his glass down and hoists him off the barstool before he has a chance to protest, frogmarching him by the shoulders over to the door. “Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to stop being an idiot, young man, and you’re going to find your wife!”

“No, hang on - how did you know she was my-?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up. Stop talking to strange men in bars, and go and tell her that you’re sorry!”

He nods determinedly, fixing his bow tie. “Yes. Yes. I will.”

“Good. And be _nice_ to her, or you’ll be hearing from me again. She’s far too good for you; _so_ out of your league.”

“How could you possibly-?”

“Just a hunch. Go on, hurry up!”

 

He finds River leaning silently against the wall of the bar, eyes focussed on the little puddle of rainwater that the overflowing gutter keeps steadily dripping into, even as he approaches; he can tell by the way she stiffens that she knows of his presence, though she doesn’t particularly care for it. Seeing the goose-bumps coating her arms he wastes no time in slipping off his dinner jacket, extending it to her as an olive branch.

She glares at the silky material like it’s a Sontaran fleet. “I’m not cold.”

His shoulders droop. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, River, I am.”

She averts her eyes as she pushes away from the wall, but he deftly steps in front of her before she can barge past him. They ensue in a standoffish sort of dance until River gives up attempting to get around him with a very pointed sigh of frustration; he drapes his coat gently over her squared shoulders, smoothing his hands lightly down her arms.

“The Bone Meadows,” River murmurs, barely audible over the muted jazz music from the bar. “That was my awful week, in case you were wondering.”

 _Oh_. “Oh.” He presses his eyes shut, jaw clenching. He remembers the Bone Meadows as a distant memory now; one in a handful of the times he ran into River with his previous face. Like the others, it’s something he tries not to remember.

River’s voice is dangerously close to a tremble when she speaks next. “It terrified me how young you were. And I thought… you can’t have been much younger, when-”

“Spoilers,” he interjects softly, swallowing a painful lump in his throat.

“I know. I know. It’s just that… it’s one thing having to be patient with younger versions of you who barely know me, who show me hardly any affection because they have no reason to. It’s another going on a date with my _husband_ of, what, a century, and getting almost exactly that same treatment.” She looks away from him, arms crossed defensively over her chest and her nostrils flaring.

He reaches a hand out to her tentatively, delving into her folded arms to pick out her hand and using it to pull her to him. He considers it progress when she totters forwards on her heels rather than yanking out of his grasp, so he keeps pulling until she’s close enough for him to settle his hands on her hips.

River watches his careful actions with a faint frown, mouth set in a thin line until his fingertips trace the elegant curve of her waist, dance up her ribs and then move to cup her shoulders. She softens as his palms smooth up her neck, ghosting over her pulse point before his thumbs finally settle on the apples of her cheeks, hands cradling her jaw.

It had taken him literal decades to learn how to touch her like this without almost going into double cardiac arrest, and he knew she knew that; only his wife got this treatment, the admiration she was so deserving of. This is what she’d been hoping for tonight, and he was an idiot for, well, for acting like an idiot.

He presses whispery kisses to her eyelids, brow, the bridge of her nose, and finally the corners of her mouth when they twitch upwards in a surrendering smile. “I’m sorry, wife.”

“You’re forgiven, husband.” She takes a deep breath and the smokescreen clicks back into place. He feels a twinge of pain deep within his soul. “You came after me.” Her eyes are soft, but hooded with a suspicious frown. “You never come after me.”

He tugs at his collar. “Ah. I might have been… convinced.”

“ _Convinced_?” She bristles instantly. “Doctor, if you’ve been chatting up other women on our date again, I _swear_ -”

“No! No, no, no, River, no, I promise. I only have eyes for you,” he attempts hopefully, a bashful grin on his face. His wife raises a very unimpressed eyebrow. “Ok, worth a try. But really, dear, when you’re in that dress the rest of the Universe is just, _eurgh-_ ”

“Have you been drinking my wine?”

“I may have sipped a teensy bit.”

River rolls her eyes, but a familiar smile is tugging at the corners of her mouth and he silently declares victory. “Back to your story, Doctor.”

“Sorry. Well, there’s not much to tell; this man just appeared out of nowhere and started giving me a bit of a lecture. Told me to come after you.” He pouts at the injustice of all. He’s twelve hundred years old; he hardly needs life lessons from a stranger. “He said you always want me to follow you; is that true? Because I could do with these helpful hints, you know, you really don’t make this whole marriage thing easy-”

“Watching you figure it out is half the fun.” She grins, then shrugs. “Sounds like he knew what he was talking about. Even though he was probably just some drunk.”

“He didn’t seem drunk. He wasn’t all… squinty and swearing and looking for, what’s it called, Irn Bru, like your mother gets when she’s had a few. Even though he was Scottish.”

He thinks her eyes widen, but then again she’s probably drunk too. “What did he look like?”

“Old-ish. Grey.” He preens his own perfect chocolatey quiff, and bites back a jealous pout. “Eyebrows that could bring down a legion.” River’s staring at him blankly, and he wonders if he’s said something wrong. It’s usually his go-to assumption. “What?”

She cups his face in her hands to pull his lips down to hers, and it’s such a beautiful shock that it takes him even longer than usual to acquiesce. He knows her well enough by now to be aware that she’s usually distinctly unimpressed by everything he does, ergo the whole kissing thing comes as quite a surprise.

Her cheeks are flushed when she pulls away, and his do the same when she pinches them, looking happy enough to burst. He wracks his brains desperately, trying to recall what it was he did right so he can note it down for future reference.  “Thank you!”

“Um… for what?”

“You’ll see.” She’s already strapping the vortex manipulator to her wrist. “I will be right back, sweetie.”

“Wait- where are you going?”

“Spoilers!” Blowing him a kiss, she disappears in a puff of smoke.


	18. Sketches and Limericks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is one o’clock in the morning where I am, but here it is! A lovely, cheerful little chapter that was huge fun to write. Young River is back! And flirtations are rife! Hope you enjoy it! Thank you all so much for your support :)

The Doctor parked the Tardis squarely in the middle of River’s living room, celebrating a silent victory when he managed not to crush any furniture. It hadn’t been long for her since he’d last visited; his trips to Luna were increasing in regularity and he tried to keep them as linear as he could, what with how difficult it would be to teach Gallifreyan in reverse.

He’d very soon fallen into a habit of visiting her almost every day, after making sure the version of her who’d just lost her parents was faring better, more than partly to avoid the crushing Clara-less silence that rang throughout the Tardis.

It was bizarre, seeing her at the opposite pole of her timeline; while she seldom looked any different in her physical appearance, his River had oh so many tells that he’d learned to pick up on. A lot of it was in the eyes; when he stepped out of the Tardis to find her, hands on hips and glaring at him, those eyes looked so very _young_ ; fresh, unburdened with the full knowledge of what a love lived in the wrong order was going to do.

“What have I told you about doing that?” she snapped, skipping the greeting altogether. “I could be in the bath, or walking around naked. Or is that what you’re hoping for?”

“Nice to see you too, Baby Pond,” he quipped, the nickname reserved for nipping her premature suggestiveness in the bud.

She pouted. “Stop calling me that. We both _know_ I’m a grown woman.”

“What’s that smell? And… this.” He gestured with thinly veiled disdain at River’s ensemble; a flowery apron paired with matching oven mitts.

“Oh, I borrowed it off a lovely young man in the flat upstairs; he owes me, the things I hear through my ceiling. I was making some cookies. Well, I was attempting to, but they ended up looking like chocolate-chip pieces of coal; I’d have preferred to eat the coal, actually. And that is my very brief attempt at domesticity over.” She tore the apron up over her head, looking rather relieved, and prised the oven mitts off with her teeth. “Where are my chocolates?” she asked insolently.

“Oh, I forgot. Hang on-”

“No – don’t leave! I hate the noise that makes.”

He patted the ship parked behind him proudly. “ _That_ is the Tardis. And you were made in it.”

“And you leave the brakes on.” River raised her eyebrows in victory. “She always complains about it. And by _that_ , I was actually referring to your diabolical piloting skills.”

He gawped at her cheek, wondering at how very little she ever changed in her penchant for insulting him. “I wish you two wouldn’t gang up on me. I have telepathy, you know; I can hear you talking behind my back whenever you come in. Will these do you?” Digging a hand into his pocket, he pulled out a fresh packet of Jelly Babies and tossed them into her waiting hands.

“Cheapskate.”

“You bet cheapskate. Saving the Universe is a voluntary job, you know; I’m not made of money.”

He loved her Luna flat, principally because like her, it was one of the most stunningly chaotic things he had ever known. How she ever found anything was beyond him, with the books and jewellery and clothes laying as one in dishevelled heaps on the arms of the sofa. The modern, basic furniture the University provided was still there but lay entangled with other pieces brought here by her, or him or her parents, that were hilariously out of place: a gorgeous vintage record player; 50s pop art pieces adorning the walls; tall candles in elaborate sconces; frankly bizarre things like that bicycle wheel in the corner that never seemed to move. He had a theory that she went to every car boot sale at Luna and simply took home whatever was cheap. For River, ownership was a dream she’d long had as a child, as Mels, and been denied; this tiny whirlwind of a flat was her deserved liberation, caught between four walls.

“Has Bow Tie visited lately?”

“You mean _you_?” River smiled. “Yes. With my parents. We went to the Universe’s biggest mini-golf course, as I’m sure you recall. Amy almost took Dad out with the ball a good few times – always when he was winning, strangely enough – and you got stuck in the windmill.” She giggled. “You were so sweet back then, you know that? You were really lovely to me. Even when you were all squashed inside that windmill.”

“Remember that you used to think that highly of me in the future, please. I may or may not do things to test that judgment of yours.” He gave her a wry smile, pointing at her accusingly. “And you cheated.”

She gasped, pushing at his finger with hers. “I did _not_! _You_ did. I saw you using that sonic screwdriver to control the ball. And you still didn’t win.”

“I was slightly afraid to. Never beat your mother at anything when she’s wielding a club.”

“Wise. Want some tea?”

He followed her into the tiny kitchen, wafting through the lingering haze of charred-smelling smoke. “Seven sugars, please.”

“I know, dear; served with a side of a regeneration brought on by diabetes. It’s our anniversary.”

She’d tacked it onto the end of her insult casually enough, but there was just enough breathlessness to it for him to think that the nonchalance was forced. The smoke coiled tightly in his lungs. “Our what?”

River nodded to the little calendar stuck to the kitchen wall, surrounded by peeling Post-Its – some, he noticed proudly, in Gallifreyan. “It’s been a year since you first visited me here. At three in the morning, in the library, remember? Or is that spoilers?”

“No, it’s not.” Only a year. He felt strangely proud of himself, seeing as he’d managed to squash a good fifteen visits into that space; she must have seen this him alone at least once a month. “Well; happy anniversary.”

He remembered their _real_ first anniversary; well, they’d had two. His had been spent with Professor Song; hers with a version of him with Manhattan years in the past. It was one of the things in his first attempt at this marriage that he’d remembered to go back for; ever the extravagant showman, remembering the big things but forgetting the little ones. Moments like this one; cradling an insanely sweet cup of tea, watching his insane and sweet single wife steal glances at him like she had a crush she didn’t know quite how to handle.

“Why do you keep coming here?” she demanded suddenly, as if feeling a need to compensate for the revelation that she remembered the exact date of his first visit and wrote it down like it was something important. In another second she broke into _that_ grin, and he knew he was in trouble. “Are you obsessed with me or something?”

“No!” He narrowed his eyes, head tilting to the side as he evaluated his own response. “Well, I’m… look, it’s – complicated.”

“Coming to find me in the middle of the night with boxes of chocolates and making me watch the stars with you? Arriving in my flat uninvited? Doesn’t seem too complicated to me. Although, the Gallifreyan teaching is a bit time-consuming for you… if you’re trying to sleep with me, you’re going about it in a very elaborate way.”

“ _What_? No, no, I’m just…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut with a groan of frustration.

“If that _is_ what you want, sweetie, you should have just said so.” Her smile was one so smug, he was certain he’d only ever seen one like it on Jack Harkness. “But you’ll have to get in line behind most of my class.”

He grimaced. “Really?”

She shrugged complacently, examining her crimson fingernails. “They put in requests; doesn’t mean I give them what they want.” Her eyes flitted up to him, gleaming, as those fingernails drummed out a rhythm on the counter behind her. “But I have to say, they don’t put this much effort into wooing me.”

“I am not… I’m not _wooing_ you,” he said desperately, searching for an explanation that was slightly more honourable than the truth. “I – I promised your parents I’d look after you, didn’t I?”

He could see the glee at getting him in a fluster ebb away from her at that. “So you’re babysitting me,” she remarked flatly, sounding rather disappointed.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m just helping you out! I thought you’d like the company, all the way out here.”

“I do like the company.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

She finished her tea in three heavy gulps, throwing the mug in the sink atop the small mountain of dirty dishes. “It’s hot in here. Let’s go outside. Take the Tardis; get it off my rug. It leaves a horrible square that’s murder to get out, you know.”

He left his full mug of tea on the bench.

 

* * *

 

 

The two of them sat on the stretch of grass that formed the heart of the University campus, reclining against a fat oak; the origins of which they’d discussed rather heatedly for the past twenty minutes – how did they grow trees on the moon? The same way they had a working university and clouds on the moon, River argued – when morning crept towards lunchtime and swarms of students came flitting past. Every other one seemed to be drawn to River like flies to honey, and he had to fight not to do what he would when she was older and let them know _very_ clearly that she was taken; not that it ever seemed to make an ounce of difference.

“Hello, Daphne.”

“Hey, sugar,” this freckly redhead replied. “Still on for tonight?”

“ _Sugar_?” the Doctor mouthed indignantly.

“Of course!” River leaned into the Doctor’s side at his irate grumbling. “Study group. No need to be jealous.”

“I am _not_ -!” He drew in a slow breath through his nose, regaining his composure. “I’m a two thousand year-old Time Lord. I save the Universe every day from monsters, free of charge. I am not jealous of… _archaeology_ students.”

“Whatever you say, sweetie.”

“Hi, River.”

“Ramona. Jesse,” she purred in response to the synchronised greeting.

His eyes almost burned holes in the backs of the two students. “More of your study group?”

“ _No_.” She waited for him to frown at her before making sure to smirk triumphantly. “Oh - hey, Mo!”

“River! How did the cookies turn out?”

“They, uh, didn’t. I left your apron outside your door.”

“Thanks, honey.” The man’s eyes floated to the Doctor. “ _Is that him_?” he mouthed to River, half-shielding his mouth in a feeble attempt at subtlety.

River twisted her mouth to the side, giving Mo a quick nod and tugging on her hair as a flush crept into her cheeks.

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow at her. “Have you been gossiping about me?”

She sucked in a breath, regaining composure in a flash. “Yes, actually. I never stop banging on about how _annoying_ it is when you park your spaceship in my living room without invitation.”

_Liar_. His not-yet-wife was too busy ogling the fronts and behinds of the passing students to waver under his sceptical glare. “So about these classmates of yours…”

“The ones you’re absolutely not jealous of?” She winked at him – neither of them were fooling the other today, apparently – then shrugged. “They’re human. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried it, but isn’t much of a match. Not really my thing. I need someone who can keep up with me.”

He frowned, risking a sideways glance at her to find her smirking at the sky. “Do you have someone in mind?”

Her shoulders rolled elegantly. “Can you recommend anyone?”

“Nope,” he answered flatly, pulling up a clump of grass under his hand by its roots.

“Hm. Shame.” He caught her studying him just for a moment unguarded, almost shimmering under the afternoon sun, the oak making dappled shadows play on her skin.

That first night came back to him, when she’d found him after a thousand years and he’d dressed her in pyjamas and made her tea. “I thought relationships were a “no-go” for you?”

“Can’t a girl change her mind?” she asked defensively, soon realising her slip-up and compensating with a haughty smile. “And who said anything about a relationship?”

“Alright then, Miss Song-who-doesn’t-want-a-relationship, why is it that you’ve been talking about wooing and finding someone who can keep up with you since I got here?”

He meant it just another light-hearted spar in their exchange, but had apparently caught her off guard; she spluttered helplessly for a very amusing second, and then her jaw twisted into a wounded pout and it wasn’t funny anymore. “I don’t do relationships because I’m afraid that – I _know_ that – I’ll hurt the other person. It doesn’t mean I don’t want one.”

He smiled sadly, watching her tuck her knees to her chest and pick sulkily at a buttercup. “Well. Perhaps you will, someday.”

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head softly, but cast him a hopeful glance all the same. “Spoilers?”

“Spoilers,” he promised.

She straightened up, tucking the buttercup behind her ear pensively. “Is he or she hot?”

“Oh, yeah. Drop-dead gorgeous.”

It made her smile so widely that he wondered if she knew. She had to have a hunch, surely; he knew he couldn’t have given it away more with his previous face if he’d made a giant neon sign and fixed it to his head, and he wasn’t faring much better now – visiting her almost every day on his part for “educational purposes”, where the amount of time for which he actually sat down and taught her Gallifreyan was rapidly decreasing.

All of these conversations with her, so early on and trying so hard to resist falling in love (oh, but he remembered those days), was making him wonder _when_ she actually changed her mind. Her love for him would tear the Universe apart less than three years from now – she acquired qualifications at lightning speed, despite her talent for getting, well, distracted – and while there were glimmers of that now, he had a feeling he’d be putting in a lot more visits before she reached that point.

He was always having firsts with her, back in the young days of his last face; every date seemed to bring one, and she was always the one handling it, albeit with a strained smile. But from what he could recall, even in the later days of his last regeneration he’d rarely been the one on the receiving end of that shy admittance that she was right at the beginning. Come to think of it, there was one first in particular that he had his own still vivid memory of, the treasured first night of their “honeymoon” on which River had been married to him so long that she called herself a Professor. She, however, never said, even alluded to anything about any of their times being her first – but then, she wouldn’t. Maybe she didn’t think it important enough. Or maybe she hadn’t because he’d yet to live it…

“What are you thinking about?” River asked with faux innocence.

“Nothing.” He cringed, instantly knowing that he’d answered too quickly for it to sound even remotely plausible.

From her perspective, it wasn’t all that long until she’d marry him; if that conversation in Hitler’s office counted for anything, she was technically, at this point in her life, his fiancée – though he highly doubted that she thought of herself as such. His visits with his previous face to Luna had always been somewhat innocent, mostly due to the presence of parents who were very much in the room at all times; her prison days had been, well, a different story. So when did that change take place; was their wedding the switch, for her? It had always been so difficult to pin down origins when caught up in their web of timelines that he’d simply given up and lived it. Now, though, he had a clearer view; not that it was helping much.

“How’s Clara?”

He scowled a bit, half because of the pain and half because he was sure it wasn’t coincidence that she’d brought Clara up during _this_ conversation. “At home,” he found himself confessing, finally. “With her boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

“Permanently.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she repeated slowly. “So you’re-”

“Alone? Yeah.” He cowered under River’s disapproving stare. “I’m fine, though. I’m fine. I keep busy.”

She nudged his shoulder. “I could come with you? If you want some company.”

“Best not. Future you has a bit of a penchant for turning up in the Tardis unannounced.”

“Really?” She snorted. “I still bother with you in the future?”

He chuckled. “It’s worse for me than it is for you, dear.”

“I’m sure. Hey! I’ve been meaning to show you…” River dug around in her satchel, pulling out a thick wad of paper and shoving it onto his lap with a proud grin. “I’ve been practicing.”

A proud smile spread across the Doctor’s face as he flicked through the papers, page after page of beautiful, near-flawless Gallifreyan. “Wow, River. Did you use the notes I gave you?”

“At first; but with these later ones here, I didn’t need them.”

He glanced up to find River’s eyes searching his anxiously, one of the many tells that reminded him just how very young she still was; she still searched for his approval. In the future she knew she had it, whether saving the Universe or eating pancakes in their bed on the Tardis, hair like a supernova. “This is amazing.” Eyes drawn back to the paper, his brow furrowed. “What’s this sketch at the bottom-?”

“Oh.” She snatched it off him abruptly, stuffing it into her jeans pocket as a faint flush crept into her cheeks. She hid it with that smile. “Just a little drawing I did.”

He bit the insides of his cheeks. “Not that I’m an expert, but that didn’t look like Gallifreyan to me.”

“Well, it’s a little tedious if I’m honest, drawing fancy circles for hours on end. My mind… wanders.”

He plucked another piece of paper protruding from the stack, eyebrows shooting up at the sketch in the corner. “Yes, I can see that.”

“Alright, give me those.” She grabbed the papers off him, hastily stuffing them back into her satchel.

He watched her with a gleam in his eye. “River?”

“Hm?”

“It’s a bit disheartening seeing what used to be the Universe’s most powerful language being used for dirty limericks.”

She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh _god_. I’m used to no-one being able to read them. I forgot they were in there…”

“To give credit where credit’s due, you know how to put a rhyme together. You know how to put a _Gallifreyan_ rhyme together; impressive.” He made a noise precariously close to a giggle. “The illustrations, less so.”

River squinted, lips twisting in discomfort. “Do memory wipes work on Time Lords? Because I’m seriously considering it.”

“I won’t mention it again; I think it’s best for us both. Don’t show these to younger me, by the way. You may actually succeed in killing him.”

“Noted.”

“Sketches and limericks aside, I think you’re really getting the hang of it. Quickly, too; it took Time Lords decades to learn this, so you ought to be proud.”

“Thank you,” she said softly, her heart swollen with the compliment and his fluttering double-time at the smile on her face. “I do appreciate it, you coming here, you know. I really do. Whenever you are, or… whatever face you happen to be wearing. All the more if your intentions are as honourable as you say.”

He smoothed the lapels of his coat. “My intentions are always honourable, Miss Song.”

“I wish I could say the same.” She grinned brazenly, then ran her tongue over her teeth. “Are you hungry? We can go back to my flat; I think I have some pasta.”

“Or, we can go out to dinner somewhere.”

He’d scarcely spoken the words when River’s eyes were pinning him down, her mouth set open in an adorable _O_ before it stretched into a smile. “Was that you asking me on a date, Doctor?”

“No; that was me doing the sensible, life-preserving thing by suggesting we eat food that wasn’t cooked by you.” He leapt to his feet, extending his hand to pull her up with him.

“Oh, I see. We still need to go back to my flat.”

“Why?”

She looped her arm through his. “I need to get changed if I’m going on a date.”

“I thought you were against dating?” he murmured against her ear teasingly.

“I’m against _relationships_. Not free food and shockingly expensive wine. Besides,” she whispered, leaning into his shoulder, “It is our anniversary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any dates you’d like to see River and the Doctor go on?
> 
> As for River’s first time… I can’t decide whether this was with Eleven, or should be with Twelve? Let me know your thoughts. (FYI, if you decide Twelve, it’s going in here!)


	19. A Certain Type of Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The total not-date that the Doctor takes his young not-wife on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in an ice cream shop.  
> Hope you love it, sweeties!

“We’re dating.”

River’s sudden exclamation startled him.

He’d taken her to dinner; a beautiful table in the moonlight of 20th Century Vienna at River’s request. All had been lovely and romantic, her hand resting tantalisingly close to his on the table top and everything, until the waiter had unzipped his forehead when they’d barely tucked into their starter. Rooting out and disabling the city-wide Slitheen invasion had not only taken them several days but proven rather stressful, so naturally the Doctor suggested a game of space tennis to unwind. Space tennis, he explained, followed all the rules of regular tennis but in anti-gravity; he whisked her away to a court built out in deep space by one of the many human colonies that had branched out among the stars. River, of course, became ridiculously competitive about the whole thing, and in due course infuriatingly smug – but of course she was going to win because how in the hell was he supposed to concentrate on something like _tennis_ when he had the vision before him of River Song – and her _hair_ – in anti-gravity?

River had become awestruck by a distant meteor shower she saw there; he made a flippant comment about knowing the best place in the cosmos to witness meteor showers, and then they were camping atop a crimson-grass hill on a tiny planet at the end of the next galaxy. A peculiar, furry little creature with three boggling eyes had wandered into their tent when they’d finally retired from gazing up at the sky; River had screamed and run outside to find several others curled up on the grass. Apparently, they’d discovered a new species; after scanning them and discovering that their little bodies were barely able to support the planet’s recent atmospheric changes, the two of them had begun a planet-wide relocation programme. It had taken a good week racing through the grasses with giant butterfly nets (and repeatedly talking River out of using a stun gun) to round all three thousand into the Tardis, and even longer to get them all out on their new home three solar systems away. The Doctor had thought it a sweet gesture to name the species after the woman who’d saved them, but for some unfathomable reason River didn’t take too kindly to having a horde of three-eyed walking pom-poms named in her honour.

After that, they’d ended up in a jazz club in the 51st Century; luckily the karaoke stand caught River’s eye before the very recognisable profile of Jack Harkness across the bar did. The Doctor asked the bartender to send a bottle of his finest scotch over to his old friend – anonymously, one colossal flirt was enough to worry about, thank you very much – and sat with gritted teeth and hands curled around his seat as River, perched on a barstool under a dusky spotlight, proceeded to turn every head or eyestalk in the place with a beautifully husky rendition of an old jazz number, eyelashes fluttering over teasingly coy eyes as if she needed to make any more impact. He might have been smug about the fact that every creature in there watched her leave her stool and sashay straight to him, _him_ , if she hadn’t left him as utterly stupefied as the rest of them. When she smirked and asked him to order her a drink because working a crowd was thirsty work he’d merely blinked at her, her voice still singing sweetly in his head and making shivers zip up his spine for hours afterwards.

Three attempts at ordering food had all ended in the baby Adipose that was roaming along the bar falling face-down in their meals, having taken a liking to River’s hair. Eventually, they’d given up and hopped back to 21st Century London to grab some good old chips and gravy.

Determined to finish what was quite possibly the longest date of his life on a high note, the Doctor had flown them to Jaruga; a planet consisting only of white cliffs and a vast ocean lapping at their feet. They sat on the edge of the tallest one under a star-peppered violet sky, the only sound the roar of the sea and River’s brazen voice. Everything she said seemed to make her singing at the bar reverberate around his head all over again, the burning image of her silhouette under the spotlights accompanying it and making him wish that she were just a little older.

“How did that happen?” River asked accusingly, hair being whipped into a frenzy by the breeze.

“We’re not necessarily dating. I took your parents here once. Been with Clara a couple of times.”

“Oh.” A note of disappointment if he ever heard one. “Do you also take them for space tennis and karaoke, save the universe from Slitheen and discover a new species all in time for dinner?”

Technically, yes; but he knew the answer he was supposed to give by now. “No; that part is reserved for you, actually.”

“Oh.” More upbeat; better. “Bit cheeky of you, to keep _relentlessly_ asking me out when I’ve told you I don’t do this sort of thing.”

“Well, no-one’s making you say yes.”

“Maybe you are. With your Time-Lordy hypnotising skills. Is that how you get so many girls to travel with you?”

“No! You’re so rude when you’re young. Actually, scratch that; you’re rude your whole life.”

She smirked as if he’d just paid her a compliment. “Is this what it’s like the whole time with you? Mad, dangerous, breathless? I believe this is the first time I’ve sat still for what, almost two weeks?”

“Good, isn’t it?”

She hummed, shifting closer to loop her arm through his as she knocked her heels together in the abyss above the ocean. “But you know, on dates – not that this a date, of course – the participants tend to tell each other things about themselves. Now, you know everything about me…”

He raised an eyebrow at her through the semi-darkness, cynical. “What, and you know nothing about me?”

“No; not properly. The Silence spent years gleaning all the information on you they could find,” she elaborated, eyes wide as if in disbelief at herself opening up. “They passed it all down to me; Gallifrey, your family, the War, your companions and travels – but it was all built towards my motive for killing you. Like a little fact file in my head; I’d read up on you so much, I sort of forgot that you were a real person. Especially having my mother tell me all those stories of her “imaginary friend” when we were kids; you were a bit of a fairytale.”

“A fairytale that you had your mind set on murdering?”

She smiled thinly. “There’s time yet, dear. Perhaps you should be more careful about mocking me.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“ _Anyway_ … obviously, I knew, still know, all the facts about you, but they were all twisted by the Silence… I associated them with this evil, blood-soaked warrior who I now know doesn’t even really exist. You know? It’s like… in high school, when you hear rumours about prom queen or the heartthrob, but if you ever get the chance to get to know them properly you forget everything you thought you knew before. People are always different when you hear about them from their own mouth than when you hear about them from others’. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah… yeah.” The pang he felt must have bled through to his voice, because River’s eyes softened in curious concern. “The first time I met Clara,” he explained to the ocean, because with River he could never seem to get away with failing to explain himself. She had a knack for making him want to be known. “She wasn’t really Clara; she was an echo of herself. Long story. But I kept meeting these echoes of her across time and space, and they’d die only for another one to pop up somewhere along the line. She became this big, impossible mystery that I had to solve; I became so wrapped up in that, searching for information on her, that I almost forgot that she was a person too. But then I found my Clara, the real Clara, and I learned all of these little details about her life, you know, the sort you don’t find in files or databases; the things you only get to know from being close to a person.”

River was giving him that little smile that she always did when he offered a little piece of himself to her; his secrets were one of the first and only things over which she had ownership, and he suspected she adored him for it. “You must love her,” she said softly. “You must love all of them. Going through all that, seeing the Universe together; how could you not?”

“Of course I do. They save me; every last one of them. They’re the only thing that makes any of this,” he gestured to the stars, “Worthwhile.”

“How do you keep going? It must hurt, to see them go.”

“It does. But to hurt, you need to have felt in the first place; and often enough what you felt, that warmth and companionship, is worth the pain the ending brings.”

“And then you go and find the next one.”

“I never mean to. Honestly, I’ve never once set out to… recruit someone to travel with me. It just happens. It’s not just the travelling that I’m addicted to, it’s you lot. The human race. And that feeling of seeing the Universe through new eyes, over and over again.”

The little warm weight that settled between his fingers felt like a little pulse of electric against the cold. River’s hand squeezed his, thumb flicking over the twin gold band on his third finger pensively. “You’ve been married a lot, haven’t you?”

He was surprised she’d refrained from this particular topic of conversation for so long. “I wouldn’t categorise four times as “a lot”,” he argued.

“It’s not bad, considering some humans are married that much by the time they’re forty. Hang on, four? Your records said three.”

Of course the Silence hadn’t bothered to look into his future. They hadn’t believed he’d even have one, let alone that he’d end up totally marrying the very woman they raised to murder him. “Sorry. I lose track sometimes.”

“I bet you do. Marilyn Monroe?”

He groaned under his breath. “She told me that wasn’t a real chapel.”

“And Elizabeth the First? How did that happen?”

“I… thought she was a Zygon.”

“Oh, well. Much better. Venom sacs in the tongue?”

“Riv _er_.”

“Sorry. We’ll let Zygons be bygones.”

“That was _terrible_.” He silently prayed that she wasn’t going to go back one more wife, and blessedly she moved the subject on.

“So these companions…”

“What about them?”

“Is it down to pure coincidence that the vast majority were young, disturbingly attractive women?”

“Were they? I didn’t notice.”

“Not even Clara?”

“Clara?” He scoffed. “Have you seen her nose?”

“So you don’t even fancy her?”

“No!”

“ _Why_ not?” she gawked. “I do!”

He rolled his eyes to the night sky. “Of course you do. She breathes.”

“That’s not necessarily a requirement in my partners. Did I ever tell you about that Nestene duplicate?” She smirked. “No match for a _Zygon_ , mind you.”

“I didn’t _marry_ the Zygon. I proposed to the Queen because I _thought_ she was a – ok, I’m not helping my case here.”

“I feel sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“Having to explain all of this to your next wife.”

“Yeah, imagine that.” He watched her shake her head to encourage her hair back over her shoulders, eyes shimmering in the starlight. “What about you? Any wives?”

She threw her head back, caught by laughter. “You tell me. You know me more than I do, apparently.”

“Spoilers.”

“Ah, I don’t think it is.” River prised her hand out of his to scratch her nails along the cliff absently. “They have to like a certain type of girl to like me.”

The emptiness of her words made the fibres within him curl; spoken as if it wasn’t even a faint possibility, as if there wasn’t a hope in the world that anyone could love a girl like her. Even someone equally brilliant, equally mad, equally lost.

“Actually,” she cleared her throat, “I should probably be getting back to the university. It’s been nearly a fortnight; I need to get a decent night’s sleep.”

“Ok. One more drink before I take you home?”

Her brow furrowed, glancing around at their barren surroundings. “Are you planning on putting the ocean in a glass?”

“No…” Reaching into his red-lined coat, he pulled out a flask with all the flair of a magician. “Hot chocolate. And this flask keeps stuff heated for weeks, so it should still be good… ah.” He breathed in the little tendrils of heat that escaped when he unscrewed the lid, pouring the liquid into the little cup and pushing it into her hand. “We’ll have to share.”

“You’re good at this,” she remarked, eyes locked in his as she took a long sip and then licked away the little creamy moustache it left on her upper lip. “If this _had_ been a date, I think you might just have got me.”

“But no-one can get you,” he reminded her, ignoring the swell of his pulses overpower the rage of the ocean in his ears.

She handed him the remaining half of the hot chocolate. “Don’t you forget it, sweetie.”

“You know…” He swirled the drink in its cup until the hot chocolate danced precariously around the rim. “I like a certain type of girl.”

Her mouth twitched. “Venom sacs in the-?”

“ _Don’t_ go there. You’re one to talk about poisonous mouths.”

“Is that what you like in a woman?” she asked. “One who could kill you?”

“I shouldn’t, should I?”

“Well, we always like people we shouldn’t. Forbidden love is the best kind.”

How many times she’d thought that to herself as a conflicted psychopath, he thought. Growing up in Leadworth, watching her parents fall for each other and wondering if just maybe she could have what was forbidden to her. _When I was little, I was gonna marry you._

“Is that your type?” he hedged.

“I told you,” she said curtly, with another toss of her head in a futile attempt to make her hair behave. “I don’t do relationships, so it doesn’t matter.”

“But if you did.”

She looked away from him, the warmth draining from her face like water until there wasn’t a drop left. “How could I ever be with anyone?” she asked with a bitter little smile, shaking her head at the sea. “I mean, realistically, what… I meet someone, we fall madly in love; at what point do I tell them about me? Do you honestly think anyone in their right mind would stick around once they found out what I really am? Of course, I could just lie to them our whole life, but then they wouldn’t love me. They’d love whoever I was pretending to be, and what’s the point in that?”

It truly pained him that she wasn’t yet old enough that he could just cup her face in his hands and kiss her for all he was worth, until she was breathless and full of the knowledge that she didn’t have to play pretend to be loved, madly, fiercely, recklessly, just like everything else about them. Her coat was fanned out around her and he soothed his itch to touch her by running his fingers along the hem, desperately soothing her with an action so tiny she couldn’t feel it. She didn’t even notice. “Maybe you need someone who already knows all of that. Who knows every last thing about you, and accepts you… loves you, for who you are.”

“How’s that ever going to happen? The only people in this whole Universe who know me properly are my parents, and…”

The Doctor looked up from fondling her coat to find River staring at him intently, creases written into her forehead like she was feeling something she was yet to understand. “You,” she whispered, eyes dropping to his mouth in a fell swoop that made a breath hitch in his throat.

She was so alluringly close that he could feel the heat of her breath against his lips. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to close the tiniest of spaces left between them and kiss her, even he could do it. But there had been something in that first kiss with her, after carrying her from the Plain of Sighs – something fresh and just a little afraid – that had told him it was a first for her too. Of course, she’d kissed him in Berlin, but that had literally been a life and death situation – or rather, death and life. No wonder she’d evidently been put off it for a while; their next, for her, had been their wedding, because his younger self had been very strict about not doing things of the kissy variety when she was still a student – something easily enforced with her Scottish mother and Centurion father around for most of his visits to Luna. Even though they were now gone he still liked to apply that same rule, given that she’d respected him enough not to try anything when he was young and just a wee bit frightened of her. Judging by that kiss after Lake Silencio, he was good at obeying his own rule; he knew, somehow, that this body’s first time kissing River had been River’s first time kissing this body.

The life they lived was certainly a strange one; there had been times, lots of them, where they’d quite literally been unable to keep their hands off each other. It had got them into a fair amount of trouble, actually. And a few jail cells.

But in hindsight, their courtship had been a surprisingly long one, and an innocent one at that. Sweet, really; if someone had told him when younger that he’d date River Song for the four years of her student life without so much as a kiss, he’d have scanned them for faults.

“Alternatively,” he started, sending a crack splintering through the heady silence and making River snap back into herself with a slightly giddy laugh. “You could find someone who’s _not_ in their right mind.”

It was enough to make her giggle. “I could, couldn’t I?”

The Doctor hummed. “Some sort of madman. Maybe one who lives in a box.” He bit his lip; this was _really_ pushing it now. But surely, he thought, she had to be thinking it too. The thought would have been planted in her head at Berlin, and it wasn’t the sort of thing one could just shake. He knew that well enough; he’d sensed that she was (quite literally, as it turned out) made for him years before he even knew who she really was.

This new shade in her he’d only discovered of late was making him realise just how perfectly they fitted together, with all of their broken pieces. Bespoke, unquestionably, but that wasn’t merely because they’d been thrown together at high speed; together was where they belonged, filling the void that solely the two of them could.

River wasn’t normal by anyone’s standards, except the man’s with the most exceptionally unordinary life anyone ever lived. He hadn’t really thought about it that way before; only counted himself as the luckiest man alive to have the privilege of calling this woman his wife. Of course he’d accepted her, loved her, because why wouldn’t he? Brave, clever, funny, kind, sexy, _mad_ , dangerous; to him, River Song was all the things he knew he shouldn’t want but _so_ did, wrapped up in everything he’d always needed.

He’d assumed the rest of the cosmos felt the same. How could one meet River Song and not get drunk on her? In part, he’d been proven right; not a date of theirs passes without several admirers sidling up to his wife, turning positively giddy when she’d play along and lean into them with _that_ smile. But they didn’t know _her_ ; not one of them did, all these poor sods she’d string along for some diamonds or a bottle of wine. They all thought they loved her, but all they knew was that she was there tonight; that life was short and she was very beautiful. The idiots never had the faintest idea who she really was, weren’t even capable of fathoming what she could possibly be. Not that it stopped them loving her; he knew well enough. He’d been one of those idiots for years. Still was; hearing her, he was only now realising that she wasn’t the only one of the two of them who was bespoke.

He’d been wrong; he saw that now, with his prediction that there’d be some sudden switch in her, between the woman sitting beside him and his wife. She wasn’t just going to wake up one day, this River, and decide to hell with the trust issues because she was madly in love with him – it never worked like that. But even now he could see it; with each day spent together she was thawing, just gradually, letting glimmers of her future self shine through, the woman who was shamelessly confident in love, who loved _being_ in love instead of resisting it.

As captivating as it may have been to watch the results of building her trust bloom in his future wife, it was still a good three years for her before they married; before she finally fell because she knew now he would catch her. And as he now had a solid hunch that their relationship until then would be a spectacular slow burn, he was incredibly glad for once that their life lived itself in whatever order it pleased. Because there was no way in the grasses of Gallifrey that he was going to wait three years to kiss her again.

 

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added on September 2nd, 2015: RIVER SONG IS COMING BACK FOR CHRISTMAS!! :D Rejoice everyone!!


	20. Fizzy and Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River comes to seek her husband after Asgard; hot chocolate and marshmallows ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> River once had a picnic at Asgard with (as implied by Mr Moffat) the Tenth Doctor, for those of you who didn't know.  
> This is quite a short and sweet chapter, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.  
> Please see the bottom for a small favour I'd like to ask of you all! :)

The co-ordinates popped up on the psychic paper, as was now tradition. The Doctor flew around the console with an irrepressible smile on his face as he always did, and the engines had barely ground to a halt when the door clicked open.

He didn’t notice the positively ferocious expression on her face until it was a little too late.

“Hello stranger.”

River slammed the door shut behind her with such force that the walls shivered. She whipped up a finger in warning, eyes blazing. “Never, _ever_ greet me with that.”

Instantaneously he realised his mistake, and loathed himself for it. “It’s just a figure of speech-”

“Yes, and one day it won’t be. One day you’ll mean it.” She ripped her coat off, flinging it over the banister. “I know. _Spoilers_.”

She spat the word he’d heard her sing so many times, and it was odd how much his eyes had been opened to what her life really was. He sort of marvelled at her for all those times when he was younger; teasing him with the secrecy with that glimmer in her eyes even though the hatred of it, of their backwards lives, was slowly killing her.

He knew what this sort of behaviour indicated, and almost didn’t want to ask. “When?”

He thought he saw relief _flood_ into her, just for a moment, when her eyes met his. He supposed it must have been nice to see a version of him who just knew.

She drew in a breath as if speaking it alone pained her. “Asgard.”

She left him with the name knowing it would be all he’d need, brushing past to fiddle angrily with the controls. He pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. “Oh, River.”

“Don’t “Oh River” me. I don’t need your pity.”

Her chin was tilted to the ceiling, ever stoic, and he adored her for it just as he always had. He still remembered Asgard; watching her with a wary sort of intrigue as she’d set out foods he didn’t even know he liked until that afternoon, that perfect pearly smile on her face and the occasional flirty quip slipping from her lips that he already knew was typical of her. She had seemed so effortlessly _joyful_ ; not just on that date but on all of them. And then she came to seek solace with this him, the one who knew her well enough just to let her be, and still insisted on an enduring façade. He suspected that it was rather difficult to switch off when she spent half of her damn life wearing it perfectly, for him.

Feeling a need to reach out to her he wrapped an arm around her tentatively, fingers splaying out in the perfect curve of her hip to pull her to him. Her hands fell away from the controls, eyes fixed on a floating invisible point inches in front of her. While she didn’t exactly fall into his arms, she didn’t protest either, so he felt safe enough to press a small kiss to her temple. “You’re here now.”

That was all he could offer her. He could have said that she was not to worry, because at this point in her life there were incredibly few meetings with his younger self left. But even the inner thought was painful enough, so he was somewhat grateful that the laws of time forbade him from ever telling her such things.

River sighed; he felt it leave her, though apparently she possessed too little energy to make it audible. “I am.”

He drew his hands away from her, flicking at a few controls pointedly. “So, my dear… where in the Universe would you like to go tonight?”

She was silent next to him for long enough that he grew antsy; reeling off names of faraway places and exotic lands that he thought may succeed in enticing that anxious expression from her face.

Her hand pressing gently on his chest made his suggestions shudder to a halt. “Can I ask a favour?” He nodded earnestly. “You can say no. It’s probably far too much to ask anyway-”

“River,” he stopped her softly. “Anything.”

She’d kicked off her heels on the way in, so she was short enough that he could have rested his chin atop her curls. He preferred her like this; it was difficult to know how to comfort someone who if hair was included equalled him in height and constantly announced her presence with ominous clacks thanks to those damn stilettos. He remembered trying them on once; while they had complimented the bow tie, the difficulty of progressing even more than a step had led to new admiration for River as well as a narrowly missed broken ankle.

Her doubtful voice snapped him from his thoughts. “You aren’t going to like it.”

“I’ll be the one to decide that, eh?”

She sucked in a deep breath through her teeth. “Can we have a night in?”

He actually giggled, before clamping his lips together and swiftly concluding that he had been spending too long with the women in his life. Not that that was a bad thing. “A night _in_?”

His surprise was merely due to the fact that she’d just asked for something so wonderfully simple as if she was demanding the Eye of Harmony in a bottle (which he wouldn’t necessarily have denied her). But his tone was misinterpreted before he had a chance to agree to her request.

“You know what- doesn’t matter. Forget I asked, it was- silly of me.” He realised that she had evidently been spending too much time with his restless and bouncy younger self who wouldn’t have tolerated a cosy night in to save his life; she seemed to have forgotten _this_ him, and that he’d happily give up days lost in the Universe to spend with her if that was what she asked of him.

She went on before he could drive a countering word in edgeways. “If you want to go somewhere that’s fine, but I’m just going to stay in. I don’t feel up to seeing the stars tonight.” One of her hands tangled in her hair. “I don’t really know why I came to _you_ feeling like _this_ , to be honest. Not that I have anyone else. My head’s just all…”

“Oh, there’s nothing worse than when your head’s _all_.” A corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “You know what fixes that? Hot chocolate and marshmallows.”

She smiled up at him weakly. “How very domestic. I’ll give it a try.” She nodded to the controls, nudging his shoulder in a farewell gesture. “Go on, sweetie. I’ll see you when you get back-”

“No, no, no. I don’t think so.” He caught her hand as she turned to the corridor leading off to the kitchen. “You’re not authorised to make hot chocolate and marshmallows.”

“I’m a professor of archaeology. I’m sure I’ll be able to manage.”

“Maybe you could manage a distinctly average hot chocolate. Not _my_ variety. There’s a whole different process that goes into my hot chocolates. Do you know the process?”

She rolled her eyes behind him, and he knew without even having to throw her a glance. “No,” she drawled.

“Well then. Shut up.”

He escorted her to the Tardis kitchen, before dropping her hand and retrieving two flowery mugs that he assumed Clara had brought aboard for one of her many failed cooking escapades. “These should do.”

River still lurked hesitantly in the doorway as he bustled around, filing through the cupboards at alarming speed. “Doctor, you don’t have to do this.”

“Shush. Do you prefer the white, pink or blue marshmallows?”

“I don’t- _blue_? What are the blue ones?”

“They’re sort of a fizzy sherbet; they go well with the chocolate, but they’re also spectacular in lemonade.”

“Is there a reason they’re blue?”

“I’m sure there is. And one day I’ll discover it.”

He heard her chuckle behind him. “I’ll stick with the pink ones, I think.”

They sat peacefully at the bench ten minutes later; River had been coaxed in by the sweet scent of what the Doctor insisted was the greatest hot chocolate in all the known Universe.

“So,” he started, after leaving her a moment to watch her take a long sip and close her eyes with a blissful hum. “What’s the verdict?”

“Delicious.”

“I did tell you.” He popped a blue marshmallow into his drink, watching it bob and fizz.

“Mind you, amazing hot chocolate maker? You look like the sort who sits and whittles pencils into spears by candlelight.”

“I only do that on weekends.”

She chuckled warmly. “I believe you.”

The kitchen was lit with no more than a dull orange glow, so he was left wondering what the shine in those eyes of hers was caused by. He’d considered various theories over the years, and had always come to the conclusion that simply she bore her own glimmer.

He remembered noticing that when he’d first met her. Noticing the deep flickers of sadness running like scars through the sparkle had come later.

“I’m sorry about Asgard,” he said quietly.

Even the mention of the place made her visibly tense. She took a tentative sip from her mug. “I’m really ok not talking about it, sweetie.”

“I know. Only… without all of those days, I wouldn’t have come to know you as I do now. I know days like that are horrible for you, but they mean a lot to me.”

“Well, that’s a comfort.” He was a little surprised to hear the sincerity in her voice, the same sentiment lining her smile as she reached across the table and twined her fingers through his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In addition, if you want to see what the Doctor dreamed about during the events of Last Christmas, please feel free to visit my story "Don't Overthink It, Sweetie" - This can be classed as part of this series and would fit in around this time for the Doctor, but I've posted it separately due to its mature rating.  
> ~  
> P.S.: (Added Boxing Day, 2015) I've decided not to post any more chapters on this fic, given that the events of the WONDERFUL Christmas Special have not only rendered it AU but given us all a hell of a lot of new writing material. Instead, I will hopefully be starting a new series soon which follows the Doctor and River's time on Darillium. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you enjoyed this. Thank you all for your invaluable support :) xx


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